How Gerard Butler’s sexy dancing put his co-star in hospital: “I mean, I cut her open”
Movie sets can be incredibly dangerous at times, especially if you’re working in a high-pressure environment, such as within water or with unpredictable animals; however, you don’t exactly expect to end up in hospital after filming a sexy dance scene, though.
That was the case for poor Hilary Swank, who shared the screen with Gerard Butler for the 2007 film PS I Love You, only to be hospitalised after he accidentally injured her, while he was wearing suspenders, no less.
You never know what you’re going to get yourself into when you’re shooting a film, but when Swank signed up to a romantic comedy-drama about discovering letters from her deceased lover, she definitely didn’t expect to need medical treatment.
While the film’s production wasn’t exactly on the level of Apocalypse Now or Fitzcarraldo, Swank did manage to have her head “slashed” open, which left Butler “in tears”. Clearly, you put yourself at risk being an actor, and this can often happen in the most unexpected of ways.
Appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show, Butler detailed exactly what happened: “You know the scene where I’m dancing and I [am wearing] suspenders? I shot that scene for a day and a half, and I had to dance like an idiot in the suspenders.” It’s hard to imagine that scene taking so long, but that’s just the way showbiz goes; you really can get paid millions to spend over a day just prancing around like a fool and call it work.
However, during this arduous sexy dance shoot, disaster struck: “At one point, the clip, which was a crocodile clip, got stuck in the television as I’m crawling towards her, and she’s right in front of me, laughing hysterically. The camera people had these plastic fronts to protect themselves from this crocodile because I had to ping it, and it would go [flying] past my face. I’m crawling towards the bed, it gets stuck, it releases, flies over my head, hits her in the head, slashes her head.”
How a crocodile clip could cause such injury is a real mystery, but Hollywood is full of them, after all. Butler continued, “I mean, I cut her open. You could even see the teeth of the [crocodile]. She had to get taken to the hospital. I’m just sitting there in my boxer shorts and my boots and a pair of socks, and I just started crying.”
The last thing you want to do while shooting a wholesome movie is hospitalise your co-star, but sadly, that was the reality for Butler, and it wasn’t even worth it in the end, because when the movie, directed by Richard LaGravenese, was released, it received terrible reviews, especially directed towards Swank.
The poor actor clearly couldn’t catch a break from PS I Love You, which was a rather cursed production for her. At least it was a box office success, if anything, although whether it was worth Swank having to go to the hospital is another question entirely; I’m leaning towards a clean no.
