10 Ridiculous Ways You Won't Believe Films Accomplished Shots

5. John McTiernan Dropped Alan Rickman 70 Ft. For Die Hard (1988)

Alan Rickman didn't take a feature film role until he was already comfortably into his 40s, and it instantly made him a star. He'd play Die Hard's uber-villain Hans Gruber with such aplomb that it'd set him up for life, seeing him build a healthy career on dastardly villainy and all-round nastiness; but it came at a price.

In a scene towards the end of John McTiernan's Die Hard, Gruber, confronted by Bruce Willis' John McClane after McLane has mercilessly slaughtered all of Gruber's men, is forced out onto the ledge of the multi-storey Nakatomi Plaza building. McClane then drops Gruber out of the building, allowing a misunderstood German terrorist to fall to his horrible death. And Rickman did this for real. Obviously not entirely - Rickman is still with us after all.

The actor's fall was broken by an air bag and, in reality, the distinctly concrete-floor-looking background was achieved through green screen; Rickman wasn't really falling out of Nakatomi Plaza. But he may as well have been: the actor really did get dropped a total of around 70 feet (or 40 feet, according to Rickman himself - accounts vary of how big his balls really are), hence why he looks so convincingly full of fear and regret as he's falling.

What we see here is the first take, meaning McTiernan didn't have to put Rickman through this ordeal more than once... but you can bet that he did.