The “really scary” scene that made Rachel Weisz forget she was acting: “I’m going to die”
While actors get to pretend to be someone else when the camera starts rolling, at the end of the day, it’s still them in front of the lens, and sometimes, something that is supposed to be pretend becomes frighteningly real.
In the history of Hollywood, there have been many incidents that have seen performers face real danger, and of course, many tragedies, with one of the most horrific incidents being the accidental shooting of 28-year-old Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow, all because of the prop department’s negligence. It’s incidents like these that emphasise how important it is for proper health and safety regulations to be put in place during filming, but even so, a scene can go from feeling safe to dangerous within a matter of seconds.
Rachel Weisz is no stranger to filming tricky scenes, having completed many of her own stunts in The Mummy, her Hollywood breakthrough, so when she came to film the 2005 superhero movie Constantine opposite Keanu Reeves, she didn’t think there would be anything she couldn’t handle.
In one sequence, Reeves’ titular character has to hold Weisz down in a bath, which is something that anyone with good survival instincts would feel apprehensive filming, and it is during this that everything started to feel a little too real, and Weisz actually feared for her life.
You’d think that with the way that special effects have developed, actors wouldn’t actually have to be put in that much danger, but in this scene, Weisz really did have Reeves holding her throat while she was fully submerged underwater, which is pretty terrifying.
“It was scary, it was really scary. Keanu was holding me down by the neck, I was thrashing about in the bath, and I guess there’s a moment where you’re not acting anymore. You’re thinking, ‘I really gotta get out of this bath, otherwise I’m going to die’,” she told Tribute.
Despite the challenges, she managed to bring the scene to life, without losing hers, of course. Critics gave the film mixed reviews, and Weisz arguably didn’t get enough credit for her performance, which really tested her limits as an actor.
Braving an underwater scene is not for the weak, and many actors have experienced near-death experiences as a result of their bravery, like Isla Fisher, who, during the filming of an underwater scene in Now You See Me, had her costume caught in the undertow, and her frantic cries to be let free were mistaken as good acting. Luckily, in Weisz’s case, there were much lower stakes in her lying in a bathtub, but when another person is pushing you underwater, regardless of whether they’re just acting, you can never feel totally comfortable.
At least Reeves is arguably one of the most trustworthy actors to film such an intense moment with, and he called her a “fighter” for mastering the tricky sequence.
