Going to the movies is fun, but actually making those movies can be stressful, difficult,
and even dangerous at times.
In fact, there have been a number of stars who nearly died during the filming of some
of your favorite movies.
Here's a look at some iconic movie scenes that nearly killed actors.
Kevin Costner
You could safely say that there's never been a better movie about post-apocalyptic boat
fights than Waterworld.
But this supremely guilty pleasure didn't just kill Kevin Costner's status as an A-list
star, it also nearly killed him period.
While he was filming a scene that had him tethered to the top of a sailboat's mast,
a sudden storm swept over the set and caught Costner dangling from the rickety mast.
Wind and waves smashed into him repeatedly, but the squall made it too dangerous for the
crew to pull him down.
According to People, Costner later told a friend that he'd "almost died" during the
30-minute ordeal.
Luckily, he had his own way of dealing with the water.
"Gills…
Mutation!"
"He's a muuuuuutaaaaaannnnnnttttt!!!!"
Jaimie Alexander
Superhero movies come with big action—and even bigger safety precautions.
And yet accidents can still happen, as actress Jaimie Alexander, who plays Sif, unfortunately
found out on the set of Thor: The Dark World.
While she didn't reveal the scene in which the accident happened, Alexander did tell
MTV that she majorly damaged her back in the accident: "I herniated a disk in my Thoracic
spine, dislocated my left shoulder, tore my right Rhomboid, and chipped eleven vertebra….The
next morning I got in a car to go to the hospital, and I sat in the car and compressed my spine
a little bit, and went paralyzed in my right leg and my right hand.
So I was in the hospital for a week."
Kate Winslet
Considering her character Rose is one of the few people who survives the sinking of the
Titanic, it would have been grimly ironic if Kate Winslet hadn't even survived filming
the 1997 blockbuster classic.
But during the scene where Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio flee the flooded lower decks, Winslet
was dragged underwater and was unable to come up for air after her coat got caught on a
metal gate.
Winslet was traumatized by the near death experience, but director James Cameron?
He let her catch her breath and then set up for another take, since Winslet had just ruined
that one with her silly near-death experience.
Jim Caviezel
Mel Gibson's 2004 epic The Passion of the Christ electrified audiences, energizing the
faithful and turning the film into one of the most unlikely hit films in Hollywood history.
But things were even more electrified on set, as the man who played Jesus himself, Jim Caviezel,
was struck by an honest-to-God lightning bolt while filming the sermon on the mount.
He told the 700 Club "I was lit up like a Christmas tree!
… What [the extras] saw was fire coming out the right and left side of my head.
Illumination around the whole body."
Was it the wrath of God?
Or was Caviezel simply standing on a hill during a lightning storm?
Who can say?
Martin Sheen
They say war is hell, but war never visited the set of Apocalypse Now.
The infamously troubled production drove plenty of people—including director Francis Ford
Coppola and star Marlon Brando—to the brink of insanity.
"did they tell you?"
"They told me, that you had gone totally insane."
But the one event that came the closest to grinding the production to a standstill was
36-year-old Martin Sheen's heart attack in the middle of the jungle.
According to the Daily Mail, the crew found the film's lead actor "crawling along a road
looking for help."
As Coppola relates it, that incident was nearly the final straw that sent him into a nervous
breakdown.
He told Rolling Stone:
"Marty's heart attack… severely traumatized my nervous system.
We didn't know if he was going to make it."
If Coppola thinks his nervous system was traumatized, imagine how Sheen must have felt after, you
know, actually suffering the heart attack!
Thanks for watching!
Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!