10 Actors Who Almost Died Because Of Intense Method Acting

5. Joseph Gordon-Levitt Crashes Into Taxi Whilst Playing A Bike Messenger - Premium Rush

Premium Rush Levitt
Columbia Pictures

Hundreds of bike messengers end up getting injured every single day - it's all part and parcel of taking on a profession that requires you to weave in and out of traffic, disobeying every law known to man, whilst annoying anyone and everything who happens to be in your path.

It makes sense, then, that Joseph Gordon-Levitt - who played a bike messenger in Premium Rush - ended up injuring himself whilst filming one of the movie's crazy chase sequences. Gordon-Levitt insisted on doing all of his own stunts for the movie (method-y in its own right), but ended flying from his bike and into the back of a taxi, smashing the back window and slicing his arm open in the process.

He later required 31 stitches to heal the wound; had he been going any faster, or had the impact occurred with anymore force, Gordon-Levitt could have ended up splattered across the sidewalk.

Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.