While it’s undoubtedly very cool to be an actor who does their own stunts, it’s also extremely dangerous, which is why Hollywood has created an entire niche community of people who’s main responsibility when making films is to do all the stuff that could get precious film actors killed.
This includes things such as superhuman feats of driving like a maniac, falling from ridiculous heights, and doing wirework that could either drop the actor from somewhere just a little too high or cause lacerations if performed incorrectly. While stuntpeople exist, sometimes actors insist on doing their own stunts for the sake of giving an authentic performance, because they think it sounds fun, or sometimes because they didn’t understand the risk involved in the activities they’re about to partake in.
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn on the set of 1973’s The Exorcist had a bit of a mishap when she was doing some wirework. Not only did they keep the room the exorcism was filmed in at an extremely cold temperature so they didn’t have to use too much fog and could realistically simulate the freezing breath of the actors, but there was also a good deal of other occupational hazards involved.
In one scene, Regan, the girl who has been possessed by the demon Pazuzu, pushes her mother, played by Burstyn onto the floor. Since they wanted to make the fall look real, they had a wire rigged up to pull her to the ground. She landed hard the first time and told the director that she knew it had to look real, but she felt like she was actually going to be injured. Apparently it didn’t matter though, because Burstyn suffered lasting spinal injuries.
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron has actually sustained a few injuries while filming her movies. Not only did she hurt herself while filming Aeon Flux, but she also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel with a thumb brace on her hand after the filming of The Old Guard, which she said she got while “fighting a very big guy” on the set of the film.
While she was doing a stunt in Aeon Flux, she did a back handspring and landed with her entire body weight on her neck after she had finished the maneuver, which could have left her paralyzed, or worse. She ended up having to have surgery to correct her broken vertebrae.
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks actually very nearly died during the filming of the Robert Zemeckis movie Castaway. He, unfortunately, cut his leg during filming, and then came down with a pretty nasty staph infection. The doctors told him that if he had gone much longer without treatment, he likely would have been dead.
While the wound probably didn’t seem like much to actor Tom Hanks who was eager to keep filming, when he finally got medical attention, he stayed in the hospital for 3 days and filming was stopped for three weeks, since Hanks couldn’t enter the water used in the film with an open wound.
Viggo Mortensen
Unfortunately for Viggo Mortensen in his role as Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s award-winning Lord Of The Rings trilogy, he got hurt more than a few times. One of the worst was when they were filming a scene where Aragorn delivers a rousing pep-talk to the company he was leading outside of Mordor. The filming location was previously used by the New Zealand military for training exercises, which meant that they had to draw up a safe zone which showed everywhere the actors could be without blowing themselves to bits.
Viggo Mortensen decided to do just a little bit of improv and wandered outside of the safe zone. Fortunately, none of the bombs were triggered but he very well could have died. He also got a black eye when trying to learn how to surf on an off day from filming. Oh, and there’s also the time he chipped a tooth while filming the battle of Helm’s Deep and asked if he could just have it glued back on to finish the scene.
Leonardo DiCaprio
During the filming of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Leonardo DiCaprio had to do some things he might not have been comfortable with to fit his role. The injury he sustained on the set really had nothing to do with this or any scenes that seem like they would have been particularly demanding physically.
While pounding his fist on a table, a shot glass that was there somehow slowly started to slide under his hand, which can be assumed to be because the table may have been slanted. He was so in character that when he smashed the glass with his fist, causing a good amount of blood to spray, he stayed in character well after the scene had been cut.
Bruce Willis
During the filming of what may have ended up being one of his most recognizable roles in the film Die Hard, Bruce Willis had to fire a gun that had been loaded with extremely loud blanks in a pretty enclosed space. He was underneath a table. Who thought that was a good idea we’re not really sure, but it had consequences that lasted a little while for the film’s star.
After firing the blanks, he lost a good 2/3 of his hearing in his left ear. He wasn’t wearing earplugs or anything either. Honestly, there’s a good chance that Bruce Willis probably received lasting hearing damage after this feat.
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford didn’t really even want to come back for the new trilogy of Star Wars films. Unfortunately for him, he probably shouldn’t have. When he was filming for The Force Awakens, he got his leg caught in the door to the interior of the model of the Millenium Falcon that was used in the movie.
This caused him to sue the production company behind the movie, which honestly he was completely justified in doing since it ended up breaking his leg. Imagine having the good manners that Ford had to come back and be in just a little bit of a sequel to the franchise you’d contributed most to, only to have your leg broken. Poor Harrison.
Jackie Chan
Researching this one was actually pretty tough, but not for the reason you might think. Jackie Chan has broken his nose at least 7 times while filming his movies. Among the other injuries are concussions, broken hips, he’s knocked out his teeth, gotten badly burned, lacerated his eye, and done pretty much every other painful thing to his body other than die that you could think of.
In fact, he was injured at least 15 times in one pretty serious way or another from the years 1975 to 1985. Luckily once he was famous and had made a name for himself it seemed like his injuries became less frequent, but he never slowed down on doing his own stunts.
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox is well known as an actor who was tragically diagnosed with Parkinson’s around the peak of his career in the year 1991, trying for years to hide it from the public. While this actor has shown that he can do plenty despite his diagnosis, he’s also had trouble with other medical problems in his history.
After about the 6th take, Michael got tired and he started to miscalculate when he needed to put his hands into a noose since Zemeckis had removed the box he was originally standing on because he didn’t like the way the shot looked. On the 7th take, Michael missed and the noose was tight around his neck for about 30 seconds before anyone realized what had happened, leading to Michael J. Fox passing out.
Ruby Rose
TV star Ruby Rose was the victim of an unfortunate accident involving two herniated disks in her spine while she was on the set of Batgirl. For those who aren’t familiar with this injury, don’t let the frequency of when it’s mentioned in media fool you.
The herniated disks that Ms. Rose suffered were putting her at risk of becoming paralyzed in one of the most gruesome ways you can imagine, the severing of her spinal cord. Yikes.
