ACTORS AND ACTRESSES THAT ALMOST PERISHED WHILE FILMING

JASON STATHAM

Jason Statham almost died during the filming of The

Expendables 3. The brakes went out in a truck he was driving

and he was propelled into the ocean. Somehow, Statham

managed to free himself from the vehicle and swim to safety.

They don’t call him a badass for nothing, after all.

ISLA FISHER

Isla Fisher may have played a magician in Now You See Me,

but clearly the magic wasn’t there when she almost drowned

on the set. The actress revealed during an interview that she

was stuck underwater for nearly three minutes while filming

a magic-trick scene for the movie. Fortunately, Fisher

managed to escape thanks to a quick-release switch and

a stuntman standing nearby.

SYLVESTER STALLONE

During a practice round for Rocky IV, Sylvester Stallone told

Dolph Lundgren to really go at it the way normal boxers do

for fifteen seconds. He ended up with a swollen pericardia

sac around his heart and had to be rushed to the hospital

by plane, where he was put in intensive care for eight days.

GEORGE CLOONEY

George Clooney almost died when he injured his back pretty

bad while filming Syriana. The pain of the injury even made

Clooney consider suicide. He recalls, “I was lying in a hospital

bed with an IV in my arm, unable to move, having these

headaches where it feels like you’re having a stroke and for a

short three-week period, I started to think, ‘I may have to do

something drastic about this’ . . . but I never thought I’d get there.”

ED HARRIS

Ed Harris is a superb actor, but that wasn’t good enough for

James Cameron on the set of The Abyss. For a scene where

Ed’s character runs out of oxygen, the director gave him an

empty SCUBA tank to cause actual asphyxiation. According to

rumours, Ed knocked Cameron out once he found out what

happened and for that reason they haven’t worked together since.

JACKIE CHAN

Jackie Chan is a master of performing amazing stunts, but

sometimes things go wrong. When filming Armour of God, Chan

missed his landing when jumping into a tree. He crashed to the

ground and smashed his head. He almost died and now has a

plastic plate in his head.

MARTIN SHEEN

Martin Sheen had a heart attack while filming Apocalypse Now

and had to drag himself a quarter mile before anyone discovered

him and got him the needed medical attention. The film’s director,

Francis Ford Coppola, was so worried about the whole thing

that he kept it quiet, even to the extent of explaining Sheen’s

hospitalization as being due to “heat exhaustion” in

the official shoot schedule.

CHEVY CHASE

While working on the film Modern Problems (1981), Chevy Chase

was nearly electrocuted when a stunt went awry during the

sequence in which he is wearing landing lights and dreams that

he is an airplane. The current in the lights short-circuited through

his arm, back and neck muscles, which caused him to lose

consciousness and have a near-death experience. After his

experience, he went through a period of deep depression as

many people do when they don’t want to return from their NDE.