As an action star, Gerard Butler not only regularly puts his life in danger in front of the camera. The actor is also narrowly escaped death more than once.
While filming the sports drama Mavericks, Butler, playing the role of a surfer, was caught in a dangerous wave and was already saying his last prayer in his mind.
Gerard Butler almost drowned while filming
According to Daily Mail, the star showed a video from the set of the 2012 film as a guest on Good Morning America, in which he played a surfer in the ocean and got into great danger. It shows Butler being caught in a huge wave and held underwater for almost a minute became.
In the show he said:
I was down because of that wave, and I was down for a long time, just turning around, and then the next wave came and I started thinking, ‘Wow, I’m going to die making a movie.’Mavericks is about the true story of surfer Jay Moriarity (Jonny Weston), who wants to conquer the Mavericks, infamous giant waves, and gets the training to do so from his coach Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler), who is a local surfing legend.
Butler himself was so enthusiastic about the sport that he was hired to shoot the film by director Curtis Hanson learned to surf especially. He was able to experience the natural power of the sea directly on set.
Watch a German trailer for Mavericks with Gerard Butler here:
Mavericks – Trailer (German) HD
Gerard Butler also almost died on another film set
The star also put his life in danger during the filming of the disaster action Geostorm. After hearing that bee venom is said to help against inflammation, he had himself injected with 23 doses of the stings. Butler then had to to hospital because of anaphylactic shock.
Mavericks is currently not available anywhere on streaming services. You can rent or buy the sports drama based on real events on Amazon Prime, for example.