Ask the Stars: Ever Do a Movie Stunt You Wish You Hadn't?
Charlie Sheen remembers an explosive situation on ‘Platoon,’ even if it seems like ‘a thousand years ago’ (Photo: Everett)
For actors on the red carpet during Hollywood’s awards season, the occasional bruised ego or cracked couture is an occupational hazard. During the rest of the year, the risks they face are likely more physical, depending on what they’re asked to do on a film set — taking a long leap, reacting to actual explosions, keeping their cool around fire. At events from the SAG Awards to the Indie Spirits to the Sir Elton John Oscar viewing party and other Academy Award-related events, we worked up our courage and asked the stars our burning question about stunt work:
Ever get halfway through jumping off a building or driving a car through fire, and think, ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a terrific idea?”
J.K. Simmons: “I used to be one of the guys who insisted on doing all my own stunts, when we were doing Oz [aired 1997-2003] and we were all trying to be Mr. Macho. At my age now, I’m like, ‘Eh, that looks like it could be tough on the back, I’ll let a 35-year-old with his head shaved do that stunt instead.’ ”
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Angus Sampson, a.k.a., the organic mechanic in Mad Max: Fury Road: “I did a stunt in a film called The Mule. The script says that my character flails about in the shower. And I was like, ‘I’m going to flail about. I’m going to fall over the shower cubicle.’ And the stunt coordinator said, ‘I wouldn’t do that. We’re not going to see it.’
“ ‘No, no, no, I’m going to do it.’ And I did it, slipped over intentionally, and I went through the porcelain base. I cut both of my buttocks. It was Day 1 of a 31-day shoot. I put my [back] out. Didn’t tell anybody about it. I was in agony. But I was playing a character who was hiding a kilogram of heroin in his stomach, so I felt that it went with his zeitgeist.”
Charlie Sheen: “Does it have to be a stunt? I was going to say three marriages. Actually, I lost hearing in one ear for about two days from an explosion on Platoon. But that was a thousand years ago. I’m fine.”
Andie MacDowell: “They had put explosions on us [during a film shoot in Prague], and my hearing is still messed up. If you do a movie with guns, they always do an example, to show you. None of that happened. Nobody checked to see if you had on ear plugs.”
Maggie Grace: “Once, they chained me under the water with hoop skirts for a film. The sign for ‘I’m actually drowning’ was to stay totally still and to make a still symbol in front of my chest. My character was supposed to be drowning. But, if you’re actually drowning, hold still. Yeah, I did [the stunt]. That was probably unwise.”
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Abraham Attah, Beasts of No Nation: “Sometimes shooting in the jungle, that was a little bit scary. When I was playing a child soldier, running in the bush, I was wearing foot gloves and I was scared even walking in the jungle. We saw snakes most of the time. We saw cobra. We saw a black mamba [one of the deadliest snakes in the world]. Cary [Fukunaga], the director, was going to step on it. In school I was a tough guy. I killed snakes with my sandals in school.”
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: “I shot a movie in Hungary once. It was a horse stunt. And the horse was very aggressive. It was the end of the day, it was a beautiful shot. I just had to gallop down the road, and I was galloping away. And they said, ‘Just gallop like a minute and then come back.’ And the shot is over. I galloped and the horse was doing as it should. But then, when I turned around to go back, the horse knew it was going home and it took off like—I was holding on for dear life, arms around neck. I did think for a second, why am I doing this?”
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: “Oh, yeah, that would have been jumping out of a helicopter in G.I. Joe. It worked, but barely. G.I. Joe was fraught with dangerous stunts, that I was excited to do, but was then, like, ‘Uh, oh, never again.’ ”
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Abbie Cornish: “In Sucker Punch, my character is being attacked by someone from behind and there are lots of weapons involved. We’re in a trench. I’m basically killing 25 guys in a row. So, I’m halfway there through that massacre, and some guy got me from behind. So I push him up against the back of the wall. And then someone comes to stab me, and I duck and they stab him. But we did it one time and I ducked and the bayonet came and sliced the side of my head as I was going down. I started bleeding. And it was that moment when you’re just like, ‘What just happened? Of course, that just happened.’ They exchanged [the bayonet] for a plastic one next time.”
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: “One time I had to set someone on fire with a flame thrower. He was a stunt man. And he was covered in a flame retardant gel, so his skin was even exposed. It was pretty intense.”
Kiernan Shipka, Mad Men: “I’ve never done any stunts that have been, ‘Uhhh….’ I’ve done minor stunts, which has been fun. I’m kind of the type of person that’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ And everyone else is like, ‘Yeah, let’s not.’ ”
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