Stars Injured on Set: Broken Bones, Torn Tendons and Lightning Strikes

Credit: Earl Gibson III/Shutterstock

Stars Injured on Set: Broken Bones, Torn Tendons and Lightning Strikes

Some movie and TV stars have hurt themselves attempting their own stunts … while others have suffered injuries through no fault of their own. In one of the scariest examples, Teen Wolf alum Dylan O’Brien was seriously injured on the set of Maze Runner: The Death Cure and needed half a year to recuperate — and even then he wasn’t sure he wanted to return to the production. “I had lost a lot of function, just in my daily routine,” the actor told Vulture in September 2017. “I wasn’t even at a point where I felt like I could handle social situations, let alone showing up and being responsible for work every day. Long hours on set, delivering a performance and carrying a movie … it just makes your palms sweat.” [sendtonews type="float" key="WMqP78L2fW-2836293-14453"] He continued: “Nothing inside of you wants to go back to that. It took a lot of deep searching past those gut instincts that I was having just because of the trauma that I experienced to realize that I did want to finish it.” Other actors can relate: Ruby Rose recently revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that she experienced “six to 12 weeks of chronic pain” after stunts on set left her with two herniated discs that put her at risk of paralysis. “It was really terrifying,” she added. O’Brien and Rose aren’t alone. Scroll down to see which Jesus portrayer got struck by lightning, which action star nearly quit acting during his convalesce, which Emmy winner fell victim to a “corset-related injury,” and which other stars headed to the hospital after freak accidents on set. [podcast_block]

Credit: Earl Gibson III/Shutterstock

Stars Injured on Set: Broken Bones, Torn Tendons and Lightning Strikes

Some movie and TV stars have hurt themselves attempting their own stunts … while others have suffered injuries through no fault of their own. In one of the scariest examples, Teen Wolf alum Dylan O’Brien was seriously injured on the set of Maze Runner: The Death Cure and needed half a year to recuperate — and even then he wasn’t sure he wanted to return to the production. “I had lost a lot of function, just in my daily routine,” the actor told Vulture in September 2017. “I wasn’t even at a point where I felt like I could handle social situations, let alone showing up and being responsible for work every day. Long hours on set, delivering a performance and carrying a movie … it just makes your palms sweat.” [sendtonews type="float" key="WMqP78L2fW-2836293-14453"] He continued: “Nothing inside of you wants to go back to that. It took a lot of deep searching past those gut instincts that I was having just because of the trauma that I experienced to realize that I did want to finish it.” Other actors can relate: Ruby Rose recently revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that she experienced “six to 12 weeks of chronic pain” after stunts on set left her with two herniated discs that put her at risk of paralysis. “It was really terrifying,” she added. O’Brien and Rose aren’t alone. Scroll down to see which Jesus portrayer got struck by lightning, which action star nearly quit acting during his convalesce, which Emmy winner fell victim to a “corset-related injury,” and which other stars headed to the hospital after freak accidents on set. [podcast_block]

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Maude Apatow

The Euphoria star revealed during a March 2023 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers that she got a concussion during an off-Broadway performance of Little Shop of Horrors.

“Well, I’m always really kind of in a panic the entire time, and [one night] I was running offstage and I guess my eyes were kind of adjusting to the light, and I just ran full-speed into the wall,” Apatow, who plays leading lady Audrey, said at the time. “And I got a concussion.”

Despite her head injury, the King of Staten Island actress completed the show before going to the hospital “when the adrenaline wore off.”

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Brendan Fraser

The SAG Award winner claimed in February 2023 that he nearly suffered a serious injury while getting "choked out accidentally" during filming on 1999's The Mummy. "I was standing on my toes like this, with the rope [around my neck], and you only got so far [you can move]," Fraser explained during an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. "And [director Stephen Sommers] ran over and he said, 'Hey, it doesn't really look like you're choking — can you sell it?' And I was like, 'Alright, fine.' So I thought, 'One more take, man.' And the camera swooped around and I went up on the toes, and the guy holding the rope above me, he pulled it up a little higher and I was stuck on my toes — I had nowhere to go but down. And so he was pulling up and I was going down."

The George of the Jungle actor quickly realized that things had gotten serious. "My elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways, there was gravel in my teeth and everyone was really quiet," he recalled, noting that a stunt coordinator tried to cheer him up by telling him Mel Gibson experienced a similar issue on Braveheart. "Thanks, I think?! I wanna go home!" Fraser quipped.

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Helen Mirren

While appearing on the Graham Norton Show in February 2023, Mirren revealed that she broke a finger while doing some of her own stunts in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. 

"I was incredibly brave and didn't say anything or complain because I wanted to be a real stunty person," the Queen actress confessed. 

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Hilary Swank

During an appearance on the Drew Barrymore Show in January 2023, Swank’s former costar Gerard Butler revealed that he caused a near-fatal accident for the Alaska Daily actress while on the set of their film P.S. I Love You. 

“She's so cool and so great to work with that I almost killed her,” he explained, adding that a crocodile suspender clip that was meant to hit him in the face while getting dressed ricocheted and “slashed” Swank in the head instead. 

"The camera people had plastic fronts to protect themselves from this crocodile clip, it was so dangerous, I had to ping it and it would go past my face,” Butler said. “This time, I'm crawling towards the bed, it gets stuck, it releases, flies over my head, hits her in the head, slashes her head.  I cut her open, you could even see the teeth [of the clip]. She has to be taken to hospital. Literally, imagine this studio and in three seconds everybody is gone and I'm just sitting there in my boxer shorts and my boots and a pair of socks and I just started crying.”

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Jameela Jamil

Jamil suffered some unfortunate injuries while doing her own stunts for the Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. "I was hurting in a place that I really didn't know exists," the London native told Entertainment Tonight in August 2022 at the show's Hollywood premiere.

The Good Place actress — who plays Titania, a social media influencer and rival to the titular She-Hulk (played by Jennifer Walters) — got hurt ... down there.

"You'll probably have to bleep this out, but I pulled a muscle in my a--hole," Jamil told reporters. "I didn't know that was possible!"

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Aaron Taylor- Johnson

While shooting Bullet Train, the Kick-Ass actor sustained an injury that landed him in the hospital. "We were in a fight sequence and I get drop-kicked across the room. And the one sharp bit of the corner where there wasn’t any padding took a chunk out of my hand," he told Variety at the film's August 2022 premiere. "And I literally went wham, passed out. And then I came back and was like, ‘Should we go again?’ And they were like, ‘No, no, no. You gotta go get stitches at the hospital.’ So, then I spent the night in the hospital.”

The English actor added, "You know, when you sign up for a David Leitch movie, you know, you gotta get a couple battle scars. Some war wounds.”

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John Cho in 'Cowboy Bebop'

“I put a lot of my life into it. I’d gotten injured shooting that show and so I took a year off because of the surgery and devoted myself to rehab, came back and finished the show," Cho told The Hollywood Reporter in February 2022 about the short-lived Netflix series. "It was this huge mountain for me to climb healing from that injury. I felt good about myself as a result.”

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Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in ‘Against the Ice’

The actor revealed that while shooting the Netflix film, he “got a small concussion” in a fight scene with a CGI polar bear, which was played by a “heavyweight judo champion of Iceland who also does work as a stunt guy.”  

“On the day, I wanted it to look as good as possible, so I let my head go and he really went for it, throwing me around like a rag doll,” Coster-Waldau told Deadline in February 2022. “Very strong man.”

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Alan Ritchson in 'Reacher'

“Reacher’s a heavy yoke to wear, he left me a little wounded. I broke a joint, my AC joint in the shoulder. I had surgery when we wrapped. I tore an oblique in a fight on set," Ritchson revealed during an interview with Variety in February 2022. "It was rough, but I got through it and I feel better than ever now. Hopefully, we can do many more. I’ll put those scars behind me."

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Jessica Chastain

While filming The 355 in 2021, Chastain fell and hit her head on a marble floor, she revealed during a late-night appearance the following year.

"I misjudged the distance. I heard a crack. That might be why I am the way I am today," she said during an appearance on The Late Late Show. "I hear a crack. Everyone stopped and looked scared, and I was a bit stunned, like, I don't know what is happening. My stunt double comes up to me, she is French and doesn't speak a lot of English, she just comes up to me and she goes, 'I'm sorry, but I have to put it back in.' And I'm sitting there, I'm like, 'Put what back in? Are my brains outside of my face? What is happening?' And I guess it was just a bruise she was pushing back in my head. I did a couple more takes because, you know, I don't give up easy, and then I went to the hospital."

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Gal Gadot in ‘Red Notice’

"I cut my toe, remember?" Gadot told Entertainment Tonight in November 2021 while talking with her costars Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne Johnson. “I was bleeding.”

The Wonder Woman star joked, “I almost died. You know the part when I’m kicking the handcuffs? Then I cut my toe. I just went all for it."

Johnson remembered the injury, noting that Gadot pushed through the pain. "At that time there was so much blood on the set. We were all concerned, EMTs were coming in, everyone was coming in, making it a big deal," he explained. "And she said something I'll never forget. She goes, 'I ain't got time to bleed,' and then we just kept shooting. It's like, ‘Holy s--t. She's my hero!’”

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Hugh Jackman

“So, people have been making a couple of comments to me, like, ‘Have you had another biopsy on your nose? What happened to your nose?'” Jackman detailed in an Instagram video while tossing around a hat from The Music Man in October 2021. “Well, the truth is, this thing is like a weapon and it hit me literally in the face and sliced me on the nose."

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Jason Momoa in ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’

"I'm getting old is what's happening," the actor said during an October 2021 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show of his Aquaman sequel injuries. "I messed up my eyes. I just got something in it that kinda cut it up, and then I've gotta get surgery, I have a hernia, I've got ribs out. I'm just getting beat up, but it's gonna be a great movie, you're gonna love it."

The Hawaii native said that although he loves his job, he sometimes gets a “little too excited” when shooting action scenes. "Then the age thing, you know, I'm an aging superhero right now," he added.

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Kyle Richards in ‘Halloween Kills’

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star broke her nose on the set of Halloween Kills, which hit theaters in October 2021. “I didn't know it was broken when it happened. I just knew I hurt myself, but I didn't tell anybody,” Richards exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the film’s release. “I didn't want the stunt double to step in and have them be like, ‘Oh Kyle, you know, let the stunt double handle this.’”

It wasn’t until she got back to Los Angeles that the actress realized how badly she hurt her nose. “My makeup artist in L.A. said, ‘You have a bone poking out of here. What's going on?’ And so I went to the doctor,” she recalled. “It didn't bleed, so I thought I was fine. It was hurting for a long time.”

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Letitia Wright

The Guyanese-born British actress was briefly hospitalized in August 2021 while working on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in Boston. “Letitia Wright sustained minor injuries today while filming a stunt for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” a Disney spokesperson said in a statement at the time. “She is currently receiving care in a local hospital and is expected to be released soon.” The extent of Wright’s injuries were not disclosed, but the incident reportedly involved a stunt rig.

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Harrison Ford

Ford was back in action as archeologist Indiana Jones on the set of Indiana Jones 5 in June 2021 when he hurt his shoulder. It was his first time playing the action hero since 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. "In the course of rehearsing for a fight scene, Harrison Ford sustained an injury involving his shoulder," Disney said in a statement at the time. "Production will continue while the appropriate course of treatment is evaluated, and the filming schedule will be reconfigured as needed in the coming weeks." 

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Nick Jonas

The singer was rushed to the hospital following a motorcycle injury on the set of his new show in May 2021. TMZ reported that Jonas returned home the following day.

The Voice coach shared an update on how he was doing shortly after the incident.

"I've been better, but I'm doing all right," he told host Carson Daly during his return to the NBC singing competition. "Cracked rib from a spill on a bike and a few other bumps and bruises. But I just want to go ahead and say that, in case I'm not as physically enthusiastic as I usually am."

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Robert De Niro

The Oscar winner revealed in May 2021 that the injured his leg on the set of Martin Scoreses’ Killers of the Flower Moon in Oklahoma. “I tore my quad somehow,” De Niro told IndieWire of the incident. "It's just a simple stepping over something and I just went down. The pain was excruciating and now I have to get it fixed. But it happens, especially when you get older, you have to be prepared for unexpected things. But it's manageable."

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Jennifer Lawrence in ‘Don’t Look Up’

Us Weekly confirmed in February 2021 that Lawrence was injured after glass hit her in the face during a stunt explosion. Although the remnants landed near her eye and production was halted, she was expected to recover.

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Blake Lively in ‘The Rhythm Section’

Lively revealed in January 2020 that she had shattered her hand doing her own stunts on the set of The Rhythm Section, which resulted in the producers halting filming for six months. “There’s one-shot fight sequences, which is how I shattered my hand,” the actress told the hosts of Good Morning America. “My hand basically turned to feta cheese.” The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants actress explained that she was shooting a scene with Jude Law, and holding a fake rubber knife, when her hand hit his elbow. “I broke some things and dislocated some things and severed a ligament,” she revealed. “It was pretty intense.”

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Rachel Brosnahan in ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’

In a January 2020 episode of The Late Late Show With James Corden, Brosnahan revealed that her role in the Amazon comedy gave her a “corset-related injury.” She explained: “We talk so fast on the show that to get all the words out you can’t really take very many breaths. And I think I wasn’t breathing a lot and I was a bit constrained, and apparently, some of my ribs are sort of fused together. … I can’t take super deep breaths anymore.”

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Ruby Rose in ‘Batwoman’

Rose explained the “Pez dispenser scar” on her neck in a September 2019 Instagram post, revealing she had injured herself on the set of the CW show. “A couple of months ago I was told I needed an emergency surgery or I was risking becoming paralyzed,” she wrote. “I had herniated two discs doing stunts, and they were close to severing my spinal [cord]. I was in chronic pain and yet couldn’t feel my arms.”

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Tom Cruise in ‘Mission Impossible: Fallout’

Cruise broke his ankle jumping between buildings in a stunt for the 2018 action movie. “I knew instantly my ankle was broken, and I really didn’t want to do it again, so just got up and carried on with the take,” the actor recounted on The Graham Norton Show that year. “I said, ‘It’s broken. That’s a wrap. Take me to hospital,’ and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangement.”

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Jeremy Renner in ‘Tag’

The actor filmed a scene in the 2018 comedy in which his character climbs a stack of 20 to 30 chairs, and he hurt himself when the rigging broke. “I broke along with it and fell on the ground and broke my arms,” he told Entertainment Weekly in June 2018. “I went to the hospital, and they said it was broken, so I got them wrapped up and then I went back to work and did everything I could do to continue on as we did.”

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Justin Theroux in ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’

Theroux suffered a head injury on the set of the 2018 action-comedy. “I had a scooter accident,” he revealed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in July 2017. “I’m peeling away, and it’s, like, the last shot of the day or the last day I’m working, and I realize as I’m coming up on the next street that there’s no lock-up. There’s still actual cars going back and forth. So I grab both brakes, skidded out and kinda went flying off the bike and landed on my head. [I] broke my head open.”

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Dylan O’Brien in ‘Maze Runner: The Death Cure’

O’Brien was reportedly struck by a vehicle on the set of the YA action film in March 2016, leaving him with a concussion, facial fracture and brain trauma among his injuries, as Vulture reported in September 2017. “I really was in a dark place there for a while and it wasn’t an easy journey back,” he told the site of his six-month recovery. “There was a time there where I didn’t know if I would ever [act] again … and that thought scared me too.”

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Harrison Ford in ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

The Han Solo portrayer got pinned by a hydraulic door on the Millennium Falcon set while filming the sci-fi movie in June 2014. “The door came down and hit me on my left hip because I was turned to my right,” the actor recalled on The Jonathan Ross Show in December 2015. “And then it flung my left leg up and it dislocated my ankle and as it drove me down to the floor, my legs slapped on the ramp up to the Millennium Falcon and broke both bones in my left leg.”

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Channing Tatum in ‘Foxcatcher’

Tatum suffered multiple injuries on the set of the 2014 crime drama, including a head laceration during a scene in which his character smashes his head into a mirror. “I went through the wall on the other side,” the actor told reporters in May 2014, per Variety. “I missed the stud by about four inches. I was lucky. But the cut on my head was real.”

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Jennifer Lawrence in ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’

“I went deaf in one ear for months,” the actress told Vanity Fair in November 2013, recalling filming that year’s dystopian YA sequel. “But that wasn’t actually physically challenging. It was just ear challenging because I got all of these ear infections from the diving and the water and all of that stuff. And then a jet from one of the cornucopia scenes punctured my eardrum.”

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Kristin Chenoweth in ‘The Good Wife’

Chenoweth was injured on the set of the CBS legal drama in July 2012. “Basically, a big lighting thing fell and hit me,” she revealed on Live With Kelly & Michael that September. “Knocked my face and slammed me into the ground. The back of my head got hit on the curb. … I had a skull fracture, rib issue and neck issue and a hip issue.”

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Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Django Unchained’

The actor’s real blood made it into the final cut of the 2012 Western after he slammed his hand on a table during a scene and accidentally hit a crystal cordial glass. “Blood was dripping down his hand,” producer Stacey Sher told Variety that December. “He never broke character. He kept going. He was in such a zone. It was very intense. He required stitches.”

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Angelina Jole in ‘Salt'

Jolie told a Comic-Con audience in July 2010 that a “ridiculously” easy stunt for her action film that year left her with a “little scar” above her nose — and that she initially thought her injury was worse. “I couldn’t hear everybody well, and I thought, ‘Oh, God, I’ve done it. I have a concussion,’” she recalled, per The Telegraph. “But it turns out, I just still had my earplugs in, so I was fine.”

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George Clooney in ‘Syriana’

The actor suffered a spinal injury performing a stunt for the 2005 geopolitical thriller. “I was at a point where I thought, ‘I can’t exist like this. I can’t actually live,’” he told Rolling Stone in November 2011. “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.’”

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Brad Pitt in ‘Troy’

Ironically, Pitt injured his Achilles tendon while portraying Achilles in the 2004 historical epic, postponing production on the film. “You can’t imagine what that cost,” director Wolfgang Petersen told Vanity Fair in May 2019.

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Jim Caviezel in ‘The Passion of the Christ’

Caviezel was struck by lightning while filming the 2004 biblical drama. “I’m about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see smoke coming out of Caviezel’s ears,” producer Steve McEveety told Variety in October 2003.

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Viggo Mortensen in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’

In the 2002 fantasy epic, Mortensen’s character kicks a helmet and appears to yell in frustration, but in real life, the actor had broken two of his toes on the helmet and was yelling in pain. “Viggo, feeling that pain, he actually turned that into performance,” director Peter Jackson said in a behind-the-scenes featurette. “Of course, it’s the best take, so it’s actually in the movie.”

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Tom Hanks in ‘Cast Away’

Hanks cut his leg while filming the 2000 survival drama and developed an infection that started “eating its way” through his leg, as he told Radio 1 in May 2009, per Digital Spy. “I went to the doctor who took one look and said, ‘I have to put you in the hospital because we have to get this infection out of you before it poisons your blood and you die,’” he added. “We had to shut down for three weeks while my skin reformed.”