Austin Butler is always committed to his stunts in movies and he’ll “just deal with the bruises later.”
During a recent interview with Men’s Health, the Oscar-nominated actor recalled how he “almost cracked” a rib while filming a fight scene for his new movie, Caught Stealing, directed by Darren Aronofsky.
“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,” he said. “I get beaten up by these two Russians in this film. This one — Nikita [Kukushkin], 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.’”
However, after watching back some takes, Butler could tell his scene partner was still holding back as “it doesn’t look real.”
“So he starts really laying into me and kicking me hard,” the Dune: Part Two actor continued. “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 recounted a scene where he was thrown on a table by his co-star, Bad Bunny, as well as the Russians.
“They had made a soft table that was made of some sort of foam,” he said. “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.’”
That’s when “they just start slamming me onto this wooden table wearing nothing,” the Elvis actor continued. “It’s little things like that with the camera angles, you can’t use a stunt double. 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.’”
Butler later joked that he felt “ridiculous” talking about his stunt work “when you have Tom Cruise doing what he does. I’m talking about being slammed into a table. Tom Cruise is hanging off an airplane. … He’s the peak. I’m so silly.”
Caught Stealing, which also stars Zoë Kravitz, follows former baseball player Hank Thompson, who unexpectedly finds himself entangled in a dangerous struggle for survival amidst the criminal underbelly of 1990s New York City. The film hits theaters on Aug. 29.