Austin Butler is always committed to his stunts in movies and "only leads with bruises later."
During a recent interview with Men's Health , the Oscar-nominated actor recalled how he "almost broke" a rib while filming a fight scene for his new movie, Caught Stealing, directed by Darren Aronofsky.
“He [Aronofsky] put it through its paces in this movie. It’s a lot of running away from people chasing me in cars and getting hit repeatedly,” he said. “I get hit by these two Russians in this movie. This one – Nikita [Kukushkin], who’s a short king, has a lot of power. When he was kicking me, he didn’t want to kick me too much. It felt wrong, and I kept telling him, ‘Just kick me. Just kick me more.’”
However, after seeing some outlets, Butler could say that his scene partner was still holding on as "it doesn't look real."
"Then he really starts kicking me hard," the Dune: Part Two actor continued. "But then he had the idea to smack me sideways like a little ram or something. And he did it so hard that he almost broke my rib with his head. I was very impressed."
Butler also recounted a scene in which he was thrown onto a table by his rabbit, just like the Russians.
"They made a soft table that was made of some kind of foam," he said. "Every time they beat me, everything was tilted. And I'm not using anything, so you can't hide pillows anywhere. And Darren was like, 'It looks fake.' And then they said, 'Just bring the wooden table.'"
This is when "they just start beating me up on this wooden table with nothing on it," the Elvis actor continued. "It's little things like that with camera angles, you can't use a stunt double. There was one amazing stuntman, but most of the time, I'll be like, 'Yeah, let's go. I'll 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 getting slammed into a table. Tom Cruise is hanging in a plane. … He’s the peak. I’m so dumb.”
Caught Stealing, which also stars Zoë Kravitz, follows former baseball player Hank Thompson, who unexpectedly finds himself entangled in a dangerous fight for survival amid the criminal underbelly of 1990s New York City. The film hits theaters August 29.
