Entertainment
Gerard Butler suffered gory injury during stunt for new film Plane and it actually made it into the final cut-Rishma Dosani-Entertainment – Metro
Plane flies into cinemas on January 27.
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Gerard Butler was the definition of a true action hero on the set of his new movie, Plane, as he actually split his head open during filming.
In the gripping flick, which is in cinemas on January 27, the 53-year-old plays pilot Brodie Torrance, who is responsible for flying a handful of people home during a terrible storm on New Year’s Eve.
After battling a lightning strike, he lands on a mysterious island where most of the passengers are immediately taken hostage by dangerous rebels – meaning he only has a prisoner (Mike Colter) on hand to keep them all safe.
The tension was palpable from the very beginning and, speaking to Metro.co.uk ahead of the release, Gerard and Mike revealed that there were also a few hairy moments behind the scenes.
When asked if there were any stunts that went wrong on camera, the 300 star recalled a painful injury that ended up making it into the final product.
‘I had to do this silly stunt. Basically, I’m walking along the plane, the plane is shaking – this is when I’m in the back of the plane and I’ve gone to check on the passengers,’ he told us.
Gerard Butler went all out for his role in Plane (Picture: Lionsgate)
‘There’s one bit that I’m supposed to hit but I’ve just got to walk along and the plane is shaking, and then I have to pretend to be thrown. It’s like, “Make your head hit up there on the overhead compartments and hit the side of it. You’ve just got to hit this little bit here, but you can’t look because you can’t make it obvious.”
‘I’m walking along and the first [take] I did, I didn’t really hit it right. So, the second one I’m like, “Okay, I’m just going for this.” I walk along, I fly up, basically headbutt the thing, miss the soft part and split my head open.’
‘That’s the one they used, because it looked real,’ he continued. ‘I did whack my head on this thing and straight away, I’m like, “Oh, s**t!”
‘That was a tough stunt. Sometimes, the easiest looking stunts are actually the most difficult and they’re just not fun. “Make that look natural, you can’t look and then you’ve got to go there and whack your head against this thing, but make it look like it was an accident”.’
Seriously painful.
The action icon stars as pilot Brodie in the tense flick (Picture: Lionsgate)
In the film, Gerard plays dedicated pilot Brodie, who is hoping to fly home to his daughter so that they can ring in the New Year together, until the weather gets in the way.
When things take a turn for the worst, he is forced to count on Louis Gaspare (Mike), a man accused of murder who is being transported by the FBI, to help keep their passengers alive.
Aside from stunts, the pair had to go through serious training for their roles before filming got underway.
Shedding light on how they prepped behind the scenes, Mike explained: ‘I think Jerry had to do way more training than I did because he had to play a pilot, which is a lot more detail oriented.
‘You’ve got a lot more skills you have to display, just knowing the cockpit. Me, I’ve played my fair share of military guys or had some military background, so I started with a little bit of a head start.
‘When you get on set, there are stunt coordinators and there are people who are technical advisors. But everybody has their own way of doing things, because everybody tweaks their own movements, how they like to hold a weapon, how they like to move through things, so you adjust it a bit.’
‘But I felt like I had an advantage in that way because Jerry had to play a pilot and, he’s not really a pilot. I know you don’t know that but he’s not! Pseudo pilot,’ he laughed.
Gerard admitted that he felt like a real pilot by the time his training ended, continuing: ‘I spent a lot of time in a simulator, in a 737 simulator, and it’s so real.
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‘I literally flew past my house in Hollywood, I went under the Hollywood sign. And when you’re landing, you’re so nervous, even though you’re in a simulator, you feel like if you crash, you’re gonna die.
‘Then they’re like, “Okay, you landed successfully, now try it with one engine up.” You do that and then they say, “Now we’re going to do it effectively with one engine and half a tail missing.” I’m literally flying in sideways.
‘It was a lot of fun but you feel like the more you know, and the more time you spend in that seat, the more you really feel like a captain and you’re not pretending. You feel like a pilot.
‘That’s a big part of this, to sell the audience on the fact that you really are just two pilots trying to fly a plane through a hell of a storm.’
Plane is in cinemas from January 27.
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