Gerard Butler’s Mishap with Acid While Filming

53-year-old Scottish actor, Gerard Butler, shared a story about how he accidentally rubbed acid on his face while working on a project.

During an appearance on an episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday, January 12, Butler revealed that he was filming a scene where he played the role of a pilot, and in the process, he accidentally burned his eyes, nose, and throat with phosphoric acid.

“No matter what I’m doing, I manage to hurt myself,” Butler joked to Seth Meyers, admitting to his naturally clumsy nature.

He explained that the incident occurred while he was “trying to find something that’s wrong with the plane before we can take off for this final sequence.”

Describing the mishap, Butler said, “Now I’m sticking my hand between these two wheels, kind of pretending that I know what I’m doing. Every time I bring my hands out, they’re covered in blood and green fluid, right? And I’m like, ‘I don’t know what this green fluid is.’ I’m rubbing my face and, suddenly, it’s in my throat. It’s in my mouth. It’s up my nose. It’s in my eyes. It’s burning my face — and I mean burning. It turns out that this is essentially phosphoric acid.”

Real-life airline pilots who were present during the scene looked on in apparent panic as crew members debated whether to throw water on his face. “And I’m just, like, burning alive,” he said. “It was intense.”

Although the star eventually recovered, he added that it “burned for hours.” He jokingly remarked, “But it was great for the sequence.”

Butler’s latest on-set mishap comes five years after he admitted to being hospitalized three times in 2017. He also revealed his affinity for risky behavior, such as injecting himself with bee venom and surviving a near-death surfing accident in 2012.