Painful On-Set Injuries That Made It In The Final Film

With special effects better than ever, it's easy these days for filmmakers to portray
even the most gruesome injuries in ultra-realistic fashion.
But sometimes, what you see up on the big screen isn't fake at all, it's the real thing.
Accidents do happen, after all, and directors often choose to leave that footage in the
final film.
Here's a look at some painful on-set injuries we witnessed on the big screen.
Channing Tatum in Foxcatcher
Channing Tatum strove for authenticity as wrestler Mark Schultz in Foxcatcher, up to
and including the part where when he gets bruised, beat up and battered.
While shooting a wrestling scene with co-star Mark Ruffalo, Tatum told Ruffalo to slap him
during the grappling "just to get it over with."
Ruffalo Hulked out and slapped Tatum so hard that it popped an eardrum.
In another scene, the script calls for Tatum to have a mental breakdown in a hotel room.
Not in the script: Tatum getting so worked up that he smashed his head against a mirror.
That's his real blood.
"Wrestling's not something you actually fake, you really have to get slammed and get headbutted
and stuff."
Brad Pitt in Troy
While filming a battle scene for the 2004 epic Troy, Pitt landed awkwardly, and you
can briefly see the pain on his face.
He's not faking it.
In a moment of supreme irony, Pitt, playing the Greek warrior Achilles, ruptured his Achilles
tendon.
Pitt later said, "It's sad, it's stupid, but it's true.
It's such a dumb headline."
Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds
The scene in which Hans Landa strangles German spy Bridget von Hammersmark was a pivotal
one during filming of Inglourious Basterds.
It was so important that director Quentin Tarantino didn't want to leave anything to
chance—like trusting actor Christoph Waltz to do it correctly.
"So I just said to her, 'What I wanna do is I'm gonna be the hands and what I'm gonna
do is...
I'm just gonna strangle you."
Those are Tarantino's hands wrapped around Kruger's neck in the final cut.
Also in the final cut: Kruger passing out.
Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange
During one of the most famous scenes in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, thug Alex is
brainwashed into not wanting to commit criminal acts when he's forced to watch film footage
of the old ultraviolence until it makes him sick.
As part of the treatment, he's strapped into a chair with his eyes clamped open—preventing
him from even blinking.
Periodically, a hand reaches into frame and places eyedrops into McDowell's eyes.
That's actually a real doctor administering the moisture because, in some of the other
takes for the shot, the clamps slipped and scratched one of McDowell's corneas.
The doctor was hired to ensure McDowell didn't get more injured.
Sean Bean in Patriot Games
He's famous for dying on screen, but unlike his character, Bean escaped the 1992 action
thriller Patriot Games alive—but not entirely unscathed.
During the climactic fight on a speedboat, Harrison Ford actually struck Bean with a
metal hook.
It gave Bean a gash just above his left eyebrow that spilled a lot of very real blood—and
the take was used in the final cut of Patriot Games.
Bean doesn't really mind the scar it left behind, either, telling a reporter, "It's
in the right place."
Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner
Unlike her replicant Blade Runner character Pris, Daryl Hannah is 100 percent human—and
thus susceptible to the type of mishap that left her with a painful lasting reminder of
her time on the set.
During a scene in which Pris runs away from genetic designer J.F. Sebastian, Hannah slipped
and fell onto a car, smashing the window with her elbow.
It looks awesome in the movie and it's totally in character for the tough Pris, but it wasn't
planned.
It's pouring down rain in the scene, and Hannah had slipped on the wet pavement for real,
accidentally jamming her elbow through a sheet of real glass.
Hannah, ever the pro, didn't break character; only afterward did she discover that she'd
chipped her elbow in eight places.
She still has a scar.
Gianni Russo in The Godfather
When James Caan's character Sonny Corleone discovers his sister, Connie, has been abused
by her husband Carlo, he loses it.
Which was too bad for Gianni Russo, the actor playing Carlo.
Caan got so caught up in the scene with the smacking and the kicking that he cracked two
of Russo's ribs and chipped an elbow.
Russo is in real pain in the scene, and that level of authenticity is just one of the many
reasons The Godfather remains a towering classic of modern cinema.
"You touch my sister again, I'll kill you."
We believe you, James, don't hurt us!
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Painful On-Set Injuries That Made It In The Final Film

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