8 Method Actors Who Nearly Died Making Famous Movies

4. Ryan Gosling Almost Throws Himself Off A Bridge For Blue Valentine

Midway through Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine, Dean (Ryan Gosling) climbs up and over the fence along New York's Manhattan Bridge in order to convince girlfriend Cindy (Michelle Williams) to tell him her secret. Finally she screams, "I'm pregnant!" and Dean clambers back down. All fairly standard emotional stuff for a romantic drama. Only the scene, and Gosling and Williams' reactions, were entirely improvised. It turns out that Cianfrance had told Williams not to tell Gosling her secret at any cost, and told Gosling to use any means to get it out of her. But Gosling's immersion in the role was so great that he forgot to distinguish between his own life and the life of his character, and found himself dangling 200-feet in the air, with no stunt double or net waiting underneath. Gosling later said: "It wasn't until I was climbing over the fence that I look down and it was like looking at my death. That's how much the director managed to blur the lines for us between fantasy and reality." A producer came on-set to shut down filming before Gosling managed to plummet to his doom, while Williams and the rest of the crew looked on, probably confused. But who knows what could've happened if Gosling hadn't been shouted down by Williams or remembered suddenly that he was a massive movie star.