Russell Crowe has always loved to perform many of his own stunts. But there was a “small mishap” on the set of his film in 2010 Robin Hood it later became a much bigger deal.
“I jumped off the castle ramp onto uneven rock-hard ground,” the Oscar winner, 59, told PEOPLE in this week’s issue of One Last Thing . “We should have prepared the field and buried the base, but we were in a hurry to record the shot in the low light.”
Crowe, who is currently starring in a new action thriller Bad Landhe did not realize the uncertain situation until he was about to jump.
“With hundreds of extras around, arrows flying and burning pots setting the castle on fire, there was no getting away,” he recalls. “As I was jumping, I remember thinking, ‘This is going to hurt.’ ”
Anthony Anderson jokes he’s ‘not as young as I was’ after stunt ‘gone wrong’ sent him to A&E
Russell Crowe.
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Intending to land on the tips of his feet to ease the impact, the actor felt his heels hit the uneven ground first. “It was like an electric shock that went through my body,” he says. “We were shooting a big movie, so you just struggle, but the last month of that job was very difficult. There were a few weeks where even walking was a challenge.”
Crowe “never discussed the injury with production, never took a day off because of it, I just kept working,” he adds.
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Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood” (2010).
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A decade later, Crowe began having what he calls “very strange pains” in his lower legs, so he went to the doctor for an MRI and X-rays.
“I thought it was nothing serious,” he says. “After working through a long New York winter, all my body was missing was exercise and sunshine.”
The star was shocked when the doctor looked at the X-rays and asked him: “When did you break your legs?” “He could apparently see the remains of the fractures on both lower legs,” says Crowe. “To jog my memory, he said, ‘Maybe that would have been 10 years ago?'”
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Crowe immediately remembered jumping from the window to Robin Hood set. “Allegedly, I finished that film with two broken legs,” he adds. “Everything for art. No casts, no splints, no painkillers, they just kept working and eventually healed themselves.”
Looking back, the actor realized after filming ended in 2009 that he took a year off and didn’t work until the 2013 contract was signed. Man of Steel.
“Looking back, I obviously knew something was wrong,” he says. “Being Superman’s Kryptonian father meant six months of incredibly intense physical training. Between the time off and that training, things picked up.”
Bad Land in theaters now.
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Source: HIS Education