Austin Butler 'almost cracked' a rib after headbutt from costar in fight scene

USA Today

3 hours ago

One of Austin Butler's latest fight scenes may have gotten a little too real.
In a conversation with Men's Health, the Oscar-nominated "Elvis" star, 34, revealed he "almost cracked" his rib shooting a sequence in his new movie "Caught Stealing."
The moment came during a scene where Butler's character is beaten up by two Russians, and he encouraged one of the actors, Nikita Kukushkin, not to hold back to ensure it looked authentic.
"When he was kicking me, he didn't want to kick me very hard," Butler explained. "He felt bad. I kept telling him, 'Just kick me. Kick me harder.' I'd watch it back, and I was like, 'It doesn't look real.' So he starts really laying into me and kicking me hard."
Butler's costar soon took the scene in a new direction.
"He had this idea of headbutting me in the side, like a little ram or something," Butler said. "He did it so hard it almost cracked my rib with his head. I was very impressed."
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While the "Dune: Part Two" actor noted he had an "amazing" stunt double on the film, he said there were "little" moments, such as a scene where he's thrown onto a table, where "you can't use a stunt double" because it would be too obvious given the camera angle.
"For the most part, I'd just say, 'Yeah, let's go,'" Butler told Men's Health. "I'll just deal with the bruises later."
While Butler said he only "almost" cracked a rib in this instance, in 2024, the actor told Variety he actually did break a rib working on his Apple TV+ series "Masters of the Air."
"There was a fight scene and yeah, my rib cracked," he told Variety at the time. "It hurt and then I had to keep fighting. And it hurts for a long time after because every time you breathe, you feel your ribs. But it could have been worse."
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Butler stars in "Caught Stealing" opposite Zoë Kravitz as a man who "finds himself caught in the middle of a motley crew of threatening gangsters" after his neighbor, played by Matt Smith, asks him to take care of his cat, per the studio's synopsis.
The Darren Aronofsky movie continues a busy few years for the former Nickelodeon star, who earned an Oscar nomination in 2023 for his performance as Elvis Presley in "Elvis." In 2022, Butler told British GQ that after he finished shooting the musical biopic, he was hospitalized and bedridden for a week with a virus.
"I woke up at four in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to (the) hospital," he said, adding, "My body just started shutting down the day after I finished 'Elvis.'"
In his interview with Men's Health, Butler also revealed he experienced temporary blindness and lost his vision for several minutes while on a plane on his way to shoot the film "The Bikeriders." He said he blamed the incident on sleep deprivation.