Earlier this week, Jon Stewart made headlines when he cut his hand while taping The Daily Show and kept on filming. He’s far from the only actor who has injured themselves on set. Here are just 11 that come to mind, including Jon’s experience:
While taping a February episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart smashed a “World’s Most Dad” mug on his desk while delivering his monologue. He appeared to cut his hand from a shard of the mug and said upon realization, “I’ll be going to the hospital soon.”
2.
Joe Pesci: Home Alone 2
One of the most memorable scenes in Home Alone 2 is when Harry (Joe Pesci) finds his head on fire thanks to a trap set by Kevin (Macaulay Culkin). It turns out that Joe got hurt while filming the intense scene. “In addition to the expected bumps, bruises, and general pains that you would associate with that particular type of physical humor, I did sustain serious burns to the top of my head during the scene where Harry’s hat is set on fire,” he told People in 2022.
“Pretty much all the footage of Glen was captured within the first 10 minutes of us filming it because we were doing, like, slant routes or something. Catching the ball, [and] everybody was going and doing their turn. Glen like sprained his ACL. He got like a semi-serious injury… he went to the medical tent within like the first 10 minutes of that scene,” Glen’s co-star Miles Teller said on ESPN last year.
According to his Friends co-star David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc dislocated his shoulder while filming a pratfall on the show. “He went totally white, and he stood up, and I could see his shoulder was out. He looked like he was going to pass out,” David said. “That was genuinely frightening. You could see how badly hurt he was. And we had to stop filming that night, obviously, and he went to hospital.” Joey getting injured while jumping on the bed was written into the show so Matt could wear a sling while filming for a couple of episodes.
While screen testing with other actors for her starring role in the Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It, Angela sustained a “small hairline fracture.” Angela fractured her hand while acting out a scene where she’s “knocked over the back” of a couch.
According to People, flying shards of glass during a stunt explosion on the set of the film Don’t Look Up injured Jennifer Lawrence’s eye.
Dev Patel directed and starred in Monkey Man, which came out last year. Early into filming, Dev broke his hand during a stunt and worried it could jeopardize the entire shoot. “If I go down, the film goes down,” he said on The Tonight Show. “I told my producer, ‘Don’t say anything. Let’s just keep filming.’ By the end of the day, my hand was like an elephant’s foot. We couldn’t afford to put a cast on and VFX it out of this movie.” Ultimately, he sought medical treatment and went back to set “the next day.” After filming wrapped, the crew even turned an X-ray of his hand into a T-shirt.
According to Vulture, Dylan O’Brien sustained numerous severe injuries while filming the third Maze Runner film, The Death Cure. The publication reports Dylan was “pulled” from a vehicle and “struck” by another. He reportedly suffered a facial fracture, concussion, and brain trauma. “It was a life-changing incident,” Dylan told Men’s Health last year of the injury.
Halle Berry directed and starred in the fighting movie, Bruised. She broke two ribs early into filming. On the first day, in fact. However, she chose not to stop production. “Because it was an independent movie, we didn’t have a big budget. The director in me said, ‘I didn’t come this far and work this hard to go home,'” she told Entertainment Weekly.
In 2020, Daniel Craig detailed to British GQ a series of injuries he’d received while playing James Bond across multiple films. One of the worst occurred while filming Spectre in 2015 alongside Dave Bautista. “I was like, ‘Dave, throw me, for Christ’s sake,’ because he was being light with me,” Daniel said. “So he threw me and, God bless him, he just left my knee over there.” Daniel wore a knee brace for the rest of filming, and it was edited out of the movie.
Jesse Eisenberg said on Late Night that last year he “tore a tendon” in his finger while filming the upcoming third film in his Now You See Me franchise. He and actor Dominic Sessa were running on a set that rotated. “I just got so hurt. I was in a cast for a long time,” Jesse said. “It’s almost as good as a sports injury.”
Did any of these stories surprise you? Have you read of other celebs who’ve sustained significant injuries while filming? Let us know in the comments below!