Plane star Gerard Butler shares the story of how he accidentally burned himself with dangerous acid while filming the upcoming action thriller. Best known for movies like 300, Law Abiding Citizen, Olympus Has Fallen, and Greenland, Butler continues to make a name for himself in the action genre. While not all of his films are critical darlings, the movies generally prove popular with audiences with the Has Fallen franchise alone now gearing up for its fourth installment. Butler’s latest movie, Plane, sees the actor playing pilot Brodie Torrance who is forced to land his aircraft in a warzone during a storm.
In a recent interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Butler recalls one particularly unpleasant experience while filming Plane that involved burning his face and hands with phosphoric acid.
The actor reveals that he somehow got the acid on his hands while pretending to fix part of the plane and that it ended up on his face and even down his throat. When the crew tried to help him by washing it off with water, Butler says that only the problem even worse. Check out Butler’s full recollection of the experience below:
“It was on the scene where I’m trying to find something that’s wrong with the plane before we can take off for this final sequence. And it’s something in the wheel, so it’s a brake. Now I’m sticking my hand between these two wheels, kind of pretending that I know what I’m doing. Whatever is in there – every time I bring my hands out they’re covered in blood and green fluid. I don’t know what this green fluid is. We’re also shooting in Puerto Rico so I’m covered in sweat. And the adrenaline, the nose is running, everything, and I guess especially with COVID, you realize why this thing spreads because I must have been rubbing my face.
“And suddenly it’s in my throat, it’s in my mouth, it’s up my nose, it’s in my eyes. It’s burning my face, and I mean burning. And it turns out this is essentially phosphoric acid. And the airline pilots that were there watching go, ‘No!’ They’re trying to put water on my face. ‘Don’t put water. It’ll make it worse!’ And I’m just like burning alive, so it was intense. And it actually burned for hours, but it was great for the sequence.”
What To Expect From Gerard Butler’s Plane Movie
As with many of Butler’s recent films, Plane looks like it’s going to be an action-heavy thrill ride. The movie, which is directed by Jean-François Richet, sees Butler star alongside Mike Colter, who plays convicted murderer Louis Gaspare. As has been shown in the trailers for Plane, Butler and Colter’s characters will have to team up after the passengers are taken hostage by a local group of militants. In addition to Butler and Colter, the film also stars Daniella Pineda, Tony Goldwyn, Lilly Krug, Remi Adeleke, Paul Ben-Victor, Tara Westwood, Joey Slotnick, Kate Rachesky, Kelly Gale, and Yoson An. Plane is written by Charles Cumming and J.P. Davis, the latter of which wrote The Contractor, which stars Chris Pine.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, initial critical reviews for Plane have been generally positive. Critics have praised the film for its straightforward action approach and Butler’s leading-man charisma, even if, at the end of the day, it is a more typical action film at its core. Like the Olympus Has Fallen movies, Plane sees Butler wielding a gun to take down enemy combatants. It’s not clear exactly why Butler’s character is so proficient with military weaponry, but it’s likely that his character has some sort of military background. Judging from the trailer, this military background could be a source of common ground for Brodie and Louis as they team up to rescue the kidnapped passengers.
Even though it sounds like Butler’s latest movie won’t be breaking the action movie mold in any significant ways, there is a clear audience for movies that deliver exactly what’s on the tin, so to speak. It’s clear from the title and the trailer for Plane what the film will be about, and it could be a great way to unwind and enjoy some solid action set pieces for a couple of hours in a movie theater. Although it doesn’t seem like Butler’s acid accident made it into the final cut of Plane, the actor’s story does make for a fun bit of behind-the-scenes trivia.
Source: Late Night With Seth Meyers