Austin Butler nearly cracked rib shooting Caught Stealing
Austin Butler revealed he almost cracked a rib when filming a fight scene with Nikita Kukushkin in Caught Stealing.
Austin Butler almost cracked his rib shooting Caught Stealing.
The 34-year-old actor - who plays Hank Thompson in the new crime comedy by Darren Aronofsky - filmed a scene where his alter ego gets "beaten" by two Russians, including Pavel (Nikita Kukushkin), and things took a very real turn during the shoot.
Butler recalled in a recent interview with Men's Health: "He [Aronofsky] put me through the ringer on this film. It’s a lot of running away from people chasing me with cars and getting beaten up repeatedly.
"I get beaten up by these two Russians in this film. This one - Nikita, who’s a short king - he’s got so much power.
"When he was kicking me, he didn’t want to kick me very hard. He felt bad and I kept telling him, ‘Just kick me. Just kick me harder.'
"And there was the thing when I watch it back that it doesn't look real. So he starts really laying into me and kicking me hard.
“But then he had this idea of headbutting me in the side like a little ram or something. And he did it so hard it almost cracked my rib with his head.
"I was very impressed.”
Butler also opened up about a scene where he was thrown onto a table by his co-star Bad Bunny (Colorado), and the Russians.
He recalled: “They had made a soft table that was made of some sort of foam. Every time they would hit me on it, the whole thing would bow. And I’m not wearing anything, so you can’t hide pads anywhere.
"And Darren was like, ‘It looks fake.’ And so they said, ‘Just bring the wooden table.'
"So they bring in a wooden table, and they just started slamming me on the wooden table wearing nothing."
Butler noted that while he had a stunt double on set, the way the scene was shot made it easier to just throw himself into the action and "deal with" any injuries once they'd finished the take.
He added: "It’s little things like that with the camera angles, you can’t use a stunt double.
"[I] did have an amazing stunt double, but for the most part, I’ll just say, ‘Yeah, let’s go. I’ll just deal with the bruises later.'"
