7 Hollywood stars who had near-death experiences on set

Isla Fisher was left in a state of panic while filming a stunt for Now You See Me (2013). Cast as an escapologist in Louis Leterrier's heist movie, the actress performed a scene in which her character, Henley Reeves, frees herself from shackles while submerged in a tank of water. 

As Isla began shooting the underwater stunt, however, she quickly realised that her shackles had genuinely become entangled, preventing her from pushing a special safety button that would drain the tank. When she began panicking some of the crew members even believed she was acting. 

''They had a guy who was off camera, but he was a long way away with a can of oxygen... by the time I realised I couldn't get up and beckoned for him, I realised that I had run out of air," the 48-year-old explained. 

''Luckily, I managed to get free and stay level-headed and got out before it went even more horribly wrong.''

Kate Winslet has detailed her "ordeal" on the set of Titanic (1997). The film may have won 11 Academy Awards but during production, Kate almost drowned, contracted influenza and suffered extreme chill. 

Speaking to The Los Angeles Times in 1999, the star revealed what happened when she and Leonardo DiCaprio shot an iconic scene, which finds Jack and Rose trapped by a closed gate on the flooding ship. 

After completing the sequence, Leo and Kate had begun to exit when the actress realised her coat had snagged on the gate, trapping her in a body of water. "I had to sort of shimmy out of the coat to get free," she recalled. "I had no breath left. I thought I'd burst. And Jim just said, 'OK, let's go again.' That was his attitude. I didn't want to be a wimp so I didn't complain."

"I knew Kate was pretty stoic – she never expressed to me that she didn't want to continue. It didn't come to me until about 10 minutes later that she was actually really shaken," director James Cameron noted. 

Jason Statham managed to escape a major accident on the set of The Expendables 3 (2014). The A-lister, who often performs his stunts, was in Bulgaria to shoot one of the team's missions, when a technical malfunction left the cast and crew in shock. 

In one scene, Jason's character, Lee Christmas drives a flatbed truck but is forced to pull over close to a pier, while antagonists pursue the group. During one of the run-throughs, the brakes on the truck failed, and according to Sylvester Stallone, Jason and the vehicle plunged 60ft into the Black Sea. 

Thankfully, Jason – a former professional diver – was able to break free from the truck and surfaced from the water. He then changed into a dry set of clothes and continued filming that day. "It's a real recalibration of everything. From that day on, I've been so appreciative of life and being able to walk on the ground," Jason has since revealed. 

Aaron Paul came close to death while filming season one of Breaking Bad in 2008. On location to shoot episode six, the Jesse Pinkman actor had asked to change his position in a scene, when a boulder fell from the roof of an RV and landed exactly where he'd been standing. 

Revered as one of the world's most talented martial artists, Jackie Chan has had his fair share of injuries, but in 1986 he sustained one of his worst. At the time, the actor had been filming Armour of God, which required him to leap from a cliffside onto a tree. Ever the professional, Jackie had already nailed the first take but asked to try the stunt a second time.

After falling for several meters, he landed on his back and smashed his head on a rock. Thankfully, the Hollywood legend was rushed to emergency surgery and managed to recover. To this day he has a permanent hole in his head which he covers with a plastic plug.

Dylan O'Brien has spoken openly about a terrifying accident on the set of Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2016). During production, the Teen Wolf alum was involved in a car accident. As he was being pulled from one vehicle, he was reportedly struck by another. 

Dylan suffered a concussion, facial fracture and brain trauma as a result. After undergoing reconstructive surgery, production on the film was delayed for six months. 

"I was really struggling," he shared with Bustle. "I never stopped working until that accident. It's a really strange thing to have so much of my identity be my career and then have this thing happen to me where I was convinced that I couldn't do it anymore. I was just like, 'I can't ever imagine being on another set.'"

Dylan, 33, has since starred in various movies, although he remains "hypervigilant" on set. 

"Even to this day, if I'm on set and I'm doing a stunt, if I'm in a rig, if there's some action going on, I am slightly irritable," he remarked to Variety. "There is a degree of anxiety in me that I don't think there's ever not going to be."

Gunnar Hansen shot to fame for his portrayal of Leatherface in the classic horror film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), but the shoot itself was the stuff of nightmares. 

In his 2013 memoir, Chain Saw Confidential, Gunnar explained that his peripheral vision was limited by the iconic Leatherface mask, which meant he often hit his head on doorways, and one time accidentally threw the chainsaw into the air after slipping on mud. It landed inches from his head.