Being an action movie star is packed with peril. However, when you hit a legendary actor like Denzel Washington by accident while on the job, it is understandable if you’d worry about ever working in tinsel town again. In an interview on the Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman (via Insider), Ryan Reynolds shared how he once injured Washington, and after doing so, was fearful for his career.
Speaking with the TV host, Reynolds recalled filming the 2012 film, Safe House, in Cape Town, South Africa. “There’s a scene in the movie where he (Washington) crawls through the trunk in the back, and he grabs me and chokes me. We were really driving a car at top speed,” he said, before clarifying that at the time, no stunt doubles were being used.
“He and I are in this out-of-control car, and my corner of my head – I felt it hit his eye so hard I was sure that it split wide open.” The star shared how, after probably giving his co-star a black eye, he felt as if he was a goner, and would be getting fired from the set of the flick for the incident.
“I’m thinking I’m going to be sent home via crematorium — like, it’s over right now, this is it, not only my career but my actual pulse will cease,” he said.
Luckily, that wasn’t the case, and Reynolds recalled Washington being very calm. “He was fine. He was like, ‘Hey, accidents happen. Let’s do it again.”
Unfortunately, filming the scene wasn’t that much better for Washington the second time around. “We did it again. I got the other eye, Dave,” Reynolds told the TV host. “For a minute, he looked like a Christmas ornament.”
But despite getting two shinners from Reynolds, the show went on, and Safe House, directed by Daniel Espinosa, of Morbius fame, was released in 2012, with both Reynolds and Washington appearing together onscreen.