5 of the Dumbest On-Set Accidents
From fragile equipment to inconveniently squishy personnel to actual physical spaces, there’s a lot that can go wrong on a film or TV set. All too often, that ends in disaster or even tragedy, but sometimes, it just ends in facepalms.
Kevin Costner’s ‘Waterworld’ Stunt Double Got Lost at Sea on a Jet Ski
What happens when your jet ski runs out of gas? You feel like a real idiot, that’s what. It wasn’t even during a long shoot or anything; water sporter Laird Hamilton was simply in the habit of commuting from one Hawaiian island to the set on another every morning, and one day, he apparently forgot to make sure he had enough fuel to get there. The Coast Guard eventually had to rescue him. Too bad they couldn’t rescue the movie.
A High-Kick Gone Wrong Required a Dubious ‘Bridgerton’ Costume Change
You might notice that Eloise Bridgerton wears a series of muffs over her hands during Season Three of the series bearing her family’s name, which is a pretty weird fashion choice, considering the season takes place over the summer. It turns out that actress Claudia Jessie had gotten a little too excited during an on-set celebration and busted out a high kick that her tight gown didn’t allow, got tangled up, and fell over, breaking her wrist and necessitating the muffs to cover the resulting cast. Jessie even spotted a form at the hospital on which a medic had written “patient was high-kicking on set.”
Halle Berry Choked on a Fig on ‘Die Another Day’
Remember the scene in Die Another Day when Halle Berry seduces Pierce Brosnan by sexily eating a fig? Of course not — no one remembers Die Another Day, but it almost killed Berry. During her performance of edible enticement, a piece of the fruit went down the wrong pipe and she began choking. She was saved only by the quick thinking of Brosnan and his Heimlich, which was decidedly not the maneuver he was supposed to execute in the scene.
Brad Pitt Injured His Achilles Tendon — Playing Achilles
According to director Wolfgang Petersen, “There’s a second you can see something’s wrong” on Brad Pitt’s face when he lands during a scene in Troy when he fights the warrior giant Boagrius as Achilles and realizes he’s succumbed to possibly the first known case of unintentional method acting. That’s right: He injured his Achilles tendon. The accident set production back for weeks, if only because the crew couldn’t stop laughing.
A Typo Nearly Destroyed ‘Toy Story 2’
There was a lot of pressure on the team creating Toy Story 2 after the success of the first film, so a few careless mistakes could be forgiven, but one almost cost them everything. A mercifully unnamed staff member accidentally commanded the server to delete everything, which was only noticed when characters began to disappear mid-animation. To make matters worse, they found that their backup system hadn’t been working for the last month. Had it not been for the backups of an employee who was working at home after having a baby, 90 percent of the movie would have been gone in a flash. We can thank that baby for the movie we got, and that careless employee can presumably thank them for their job.
