'Burning Alive': Hollywood Star Reveals Accident with Acid on His Face During Filming
Gerard Butler experienced a dangerous accident on the set of his newest movie “Plane.”
The Scottish actor described the incident in a Thursday interview on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
Butler, who plays a commercial pilot in the film, rubbed his face with phosphoric acid on set.
Butler was acting in a scene in which his character fixed a plane before the accident, according to the New York Post.
“I’m sticking my hand between these two wheels, kind of pretending that I know what I’m doing,” Butler said of the scene, which is set in the Philippines but made in Puerto Rico.
The actor, known for such films as “300” and “Olympus Has Fallen,” discovered his hand covered in “green fluid” from the plane prop.
“I’m rubbing my face, and suddenly… it’s in my throat, it’s in my mouth, it’s up my nose, it’s in my eyes, it’s burning my face, and I mean, burning.
“And it turns out this is essentially phosphoric acid.”
Commercial pilots advising the film’s cast on the set pointed out the danger of the situation, although it’s unclear if Butler ended up washing the acid off of his face amid concerns that would make the emergency worse.
“We’re also shooting in Puerto Rico, so I’m covered in sweat,” Butler said of the on-set acid emergency.
“I’m just, like, burning alive… So it was intense. It actually burned for hours.”
The actor didn’t reveal how the acid was removed.
In the movie, Butler plays a commercial pilot who makes an emergency landing of his aircraft in a territory controlled by a separatist Filipino militia.
He’s promising audiences a “classic action movie,” describing the film as a “throwback” to classics featuring stars such as Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis.
The film’s trailer advertises an action-filled survival thriller, with the aircraft’s passengers struggling to survive the predation of the militia and find a way off of a dangerous island crash site.
The film’s premise appears to resemble a new take on survival thriller themes seen in “Cast Away” and the television series “Lost.”
Reviews have been generally favorable.
“Plane” premiered Friday and is playing in theaters nationwide.
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