Movie sets can be unpredictable, and while audiences usually associate on-set injuries with intense sequences, sometimes the most dangerous moments occur during a simple routine. That is exactly what happened on the set of the 2007 romantic drama ‘P.S. I Love You.’
In an old interview, Gerard Butler recounted how a chaotic prop malfunction during his solo dance sequence accidentally backfired on co-star Hilary Swank. Despite not being part of the action, Swank ended up with an injury that sent her to a local hospital. Here’s how it happened.
Gerard Butler’s Unexpected Wardrobe Malfunction
When Hilary Swank agreed to Richard LaGravenese’s movie, she expected a touching story about a woman who discovers several letters written by her late husband. What the actress had never imagined was an unexpected injury while filming a fun scene.
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During a January 2023 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Butler explained exactly how Swank ended up in a hospital because of the simple scene. It was during the scene in which Butler’s character dances wearing suspenders. It took him a day and a half to get the sequence right, and he danced like an “idiot.”
For the scene, Butler was holding a pair of suspender clips, which actually led to the mishap. Everything seemed harmless when the actor moved closer to Swank, who was sitting and laughing.
“The camera people had these plastic fronts to protect themselves from this crocodile because I had to ping it, and it would go [flying] past my face. I’m crawling towards the bed, it gets stuck, it releases, flies over my head, hits her in the head, slashes her head.”
Butler continued, “I mean, I cut her open. You could even see the teeth of the [crocodile]. She had to get taken to the hospital. I’m just sitting there in my boxer shorts and my boots and a pair of socks, and I just started crying.”
Critics Absolutely Hated ‘P.S. I Love You’
Furthermore, the misfortune wasn’t even worth it for Hilary Swank, who faced another disappointment after the movie’s release. While the movie was a box-office success, the reviews were terrible, with many critics giving especially harsh comments about Swank’s acting.
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On Rotten Tomatoes, ‘P.S. I Love You’ has a score of 25% based on 105 reviews, with an average rating of 4.50/10. Its consensus reads, “Hilary Swank is miscast as the romantic lead in this clichéd film about loss and love.”
San Francisco Chronicle‘s David Wiegand said that the only graceful things about the movie were Lisa Kudrow and Swank’s wardrobes, adding that a competent script could have saved the project.
“The direction is flabby and uninspired, the casting is wrongheaded, and the performances run the gamut from uninteresting to insufferable,” a part of his review reads. Meanwhile, Irish critics lambasted Butler for his Irish accent, for which the actor later jokingly apologized.
In the end, the painful injury and the poor critical reception ensured ‘P.S. I Love You’ would never be among Swank’s favorite projects, but it did leave Butler with one of the most bizarre on-set stories in Hollywood history.
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