00:00Next time, put an ice pack on your head.
00:02Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the times actors found themselves in near-death situations
00:10during seemingly routine scenes.
00:21Number 10. Chevy Chase, Modern Problems.
00:25You don't often run the risk of losing your life while shooting a comedy, but that's exactly what happened to
00:31former SNL star Chevy Chase on the set of Modern Problems.
00:34What? Is he alright?
00:36I think so. He said he felt fine. He's with a doctor.
00:39At one point, his character enters a dream sequence where he imagines himself as an airplane.
00:44He wore a special suit equipped with landing lights.
00:47Unfortunately, the suit was incredibly warm, and the future community star began to sweat profusely.
00:54This moisture short-circuited the lights, and Chase was badly electrocuted.
00:59His entire nervous system was overloaded, and he lost consciousness.
01:03While he survived the accident, Chase suffered from PTSD and drug use afterward.
01:09Both, along with his notorious temperament, significantly harmed his career.
01:14I'm a monster! Look at me! This is a real me!
01:17Number 9. Matthew Fox, Lost.
01:20Lost!
01:23On-set accidents happen, but they can be especially traumatic when a co-star is responsible.
01:29While Terry O'Quinn may be a nice guy in real life, his character in Lost could be a scary
01:34dude.
01:35In the show's finale, O'Quinn's character fatally stabs hero Jack Shepard, played by Matthew Fox.
01:42Unfortunately, the stunt almost proved fatal for the actor as well.
01:46O'Quinn had two knives, one reel, one rubber, for the sequence.
01:50When it came time to shoot the moment of the stabbing, he accidentally grabbed the real knife.
01:55He actually stabbed his co-star, who thankfully managed to survive the incident with good humor.
02:01Number 8. Tom Hanks, Cast Away.
02:05Tragedy nearly struck when actor and generally nice bloke Tom Hanks cut himself on the set of this adventure drama.
02:11While only a minor cut, it quickly became infected.
02:15Over here! Help me! Help! Right here! Right here!
02:19When he finally went to the hospital, a doctor told him the cut could poison his blood, so Hanks was
02:24kept in the hospital.
02:25We live and we die by time, don't we?
02:27This incident set filming back three weeks, but Hanks fully recovered, and we're certainly glad he didn't die.
02:34Who would have broken the news to Wilson?
02:37Oh! Oh! Never again! Never again! Never again!
02:42Number 7. Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games, Mockingjay Part 2.
02:48We gotta go. We gotta get out of here now.
02:49They released months.
02:51Fox, what's the fastest way out?
02:52One time, America's sweetheart Jennifer Lawrence was on set in Atlanta filming The Hunger Games finale.
02:59Everything seemed to be going smoothly until disaster nearly struck.
03:04During a scene where her character Katniss leads people through a tunnel, a fog machine malfunctioned.
03:10It kept pumping thick fog into the tunnel, choking Lawrence and her co-stars.
03:15Everyone vanished in the mist, though the sounds of gagging and choking were audible.
03:20The assistant director barked orders to turn on large fans to blow it away.
03:25The crew carried Lawrence to safety, though she was nauseous and nearly hacking up a lung.
03:31Katniss, come on, move!
03:33Number 6. Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York.
03:37Daniel Day-Lewis paid a heavy price for his extreme brand of method acting on more than one occasion.
03:43But on the set of the Scorsese epic Gangs of New York, this devotion to Kraft almost cost Day-Lewis
03:49his life.
03:50As his character lived in the 1860s, Lewis insisted upon wearing period-specific clothing 24-7, despite the cold weather.
03:58When he developed pneumonia, he refused to treat the illness with modern medicine.
04:03Instead, he would spend his off-time in character on the streets of Rome, New York, trying to instigate fistfights
04:09with locals.
04:10You're a great one for the fighting, Bill, I know. But you can't fight forever.
04:14I can go down doing it.
04:15And you will.
04:16After the production ended, Day-Lewis confessed that his approach to the character almost ended with his own demise.
04:23Number 5. Viggo Mortensen, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.
04:29Depending on who you ask, Mortensen came close to dying in Middle-earth twice.
04:33Viggo almost drowned doing one of his own stunts, which is well-established.
04:38Aragorn was supposed to be doing a dead man's float down the river, but the speed of the current, coupled
04:43with the weight of his costume, made for real danger.
04:45So in any case, I didn't float to exactly the same spot they had, and I hit this spot where
04:51the current hit this rock and went straight down.
04:53Mortensen was pulled underwater and nearly stayed there.
04:56But it's also been reported that a scene where Aragorn deflects the Uruk-hai's throwing knife was actually a mistake,
05:03and the deflection was actually self-preservation.
05:06Planned or accidental, Viggo's clearly got some survival skills.
05:09I guess I must have eventually kicked against the wall or the rock and got just out of where this
05:15current was pushing down, came out of it, and it was really scary.
05:19Number 4. Jamie Alexander, Thor, The Dark World, and Blindspot.
05:25This thief actress got defeated by the most humble of foes in the second Thor flick, A Flight of Stairs.
05:31You might want to take the stairs to the left.
05:33After tripping over in heels, Jamie Alexander chipped 11 vertebrae, knocked out her left shoulder, slipped a spinal disc, and
05:42tore a rhomboid.
05:43Don't worry though, she was largely healed and back to filming within a month.
05:47Good, let's go.
05:49However, we couldn't finish this entry without mentioning the injury she sustained on the American crime drama Blindspot.
05:59During a Today appearance, the actress needed to consult her smartphone to remember the multitude of injuries she sustained on
06:06set.
06:07Herniated disc, T3, T4, T8, T9, broken nose, dislocated right shoulder, broken right index finger, broken left foot, left two
06:13toes three times.
06:14The only conclusion you can make is she's a real-life Asgardian warrior.
06:18Number 3. Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad.
06:21Did you know that Jesse Pinkman was supposed to be killed off in the first season of Breaking Bad?
06:26I'm your partner, man. You should have told me.
06:29The idea was ditched early on because, you know, Jesse's awesome.
06:33Badass from what I hear.
06:35But the writers may never have had the chance to save Jesse if Aaron Paul wasn't a perfectionist.
06:40In episode 6 of the first season, Paul asked to change the position where he was standing.
06:45This was very lucky because a boulder fell down off the roof of an RV and landed exactly where Aaron
06:51had been standing during the filming of the scene.
06:54Mr. White, it's too risky.
06:57Okay?
06:58I mean, we're making money.
07:00Why can't you just be satisfied with the way it is?
07:02Oh, come on!
07:02Jesus!
07:03Number 2. Margaret Hamilton, The Wizard of Oz.
07:07The Wizard of Oz may be one of the most classic films in American history, but the set was a
07:12death trap.
07:13Ah! You cursed rat! Look what you've done!
07:16The original actor cast to play the Tin Man, Buddy Ebsen, had to drop out when the silver body paint
07:22gave him a near-fatal allergic reaction.
07:25He had to recover in an iron lung.
07:27Margaret Hamilton, also known as the Wicked Witch of the West, met with a nastier, near-disastrous fate.
07:34There was a running gag that the witch would often disappear in a puff of smoke.
07:42During one of those scenes, the trapdoor she had to fall through malfunctioned, and the pyrotechnics caused severe burns.
07:49She spent six weeks recovering and refused to do the stunt again.
07:55Number 1. Martin Sheen, Apocalypse Now.
07:58Don't you think it's a little risky for R&R?
08:00An infamously troubled shoot, the cast and crew of the critically acclaimed film have said that, much like Marlon Brando's
08:08Colonel Kurtz, many involved in the production kind of lost their minds.
08:12Those involved partied very, very hard, getting lost in the jungle atmosphere and losing themselves in their roles.
08:19Martin Sheen, who was already hitting the bottle, began to lean even more heavily into alcohol throughout the high-stress
08:25shoot.
08:25Ultimately, his body responded in the form of a heart attack and nervous breakdown.
08:30He survived, but the entire experience would continue to haunt him for years.
08:34That if I wanted to live, it was my choice. If I wanted to die, that was my choice too.
08:38Are there other near-fatal accidents that should be on this list? Let us know in the comments.
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