6 Actors Who Nearly Died Filming 2014's Biggest Movies

From the outside, working in Hollywood looks like the cushty job around. Make pretend in front of a camera all day, make a billion dollars, go hang out at the Olive Garden, drive sports cars around, have any accidental deaths be covered up for you by your agent €“ yep, life's pretty sweet for the movie stars. And it's all so easy! You barely even have to do anything. Or so it appears. In fact the men, women and children who provide us a ninety minute respite from our terrible lives during a trip to the multiplex have it a damn sight harder than you think. It may seem like it's all sitting around on green screens and having all the hard work done by CGI monkeys in post-production, acting can be a pretty gruelling process. You could have to inhabit a particularly intense or unlikeable character, be called up to perform some death-defying stunts, or be asked to work with William Friedkin. It's no cakewalk, that's for sure, and on occasion there's the very real threat of getting killed €“ all whilst in the pursuit of that sweet, sweet box office mojo. Last year saw a cavalcade of your favourite stars very nearly joining the choir invisible whilst filming some of the summer's hugest megablockbusters - and a couple in films where, really, near-death experiences should have been the furthest thing from their minds - and this year€™s selection was no different. There were botched stunts, on-set accidents and malfunctioning equipment (you think it'd be someone's job to keep on top of this sort of thing), all of which make up our list of six actors who almost died filming 2014's biggest movies.

Bonus: Michael Bay Attacked On The Set Of Transformers: Age Of Extinction

To date the fourth in the blockbuster Transformers series is the biggest box office earner of 2014, grossing over $1 billion in worldwide box office revenue (despite totting up a rather embarrassing 18% on Rotten Tomatoes). So definitely one of the year's biggest movies, and also the scene of a near-death experience for one of the people involved with the production; not an actor, however, but director Michael "Yes, More Explosions" Bay, who was attacked on the film's Hong Kong set. "Yes, some drugged up guys were being belligerent asses to my crew for hours in the morning of our first shoot day in Hong Kong," Bay said. "One guy rolled metal carts into some of my actors trying to shake us down for thousands of dollars to not play his loud music or hit us with bricks." The shakedown - related to the payment local vendors would receive for filming disrupting their business - escalated into said guys turning up, tossing an air conditioning unit at the director and then pouncing on him. Thankfully some quick-acting crew members pulled the guy off Bay, who suffered injuries to the right side of his face, but it could've been a whole lot worse.