Watch: Olivia Wilde Reacts to Rumors of Screaming Match With Florence Pugh on Don’t Worry Darling Set
Olivia Wilde would actually be out of this world if not for Walton Goggins.
The Invite director recently reflected on a near-death experience she had on the set of the 2011 movie Cowboys & Aliens while filming a battle scene alongside Goggins.
“I had a very bad horse accident,” Wilde, who played cowboy-turned-alien Ella Swenson in the film, detailed during a June 29 appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, “and he saved me.”
Indeed, while the 42-year-old noted she had plenty of familiarity with horses by the time she got to set, she wasn’t used to the style or cadence of riding the film required—especially on the day of the incident.
“We were pretty cocky with it and we were pretty competitive,” she recalled. “It was me, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford galloping like full, full sprint across the desert with like, 40 horses behind us.”
In the middle of the scene however, Wilde’s horse attempted to jump over a 6-foot ditch and the Booksmart director realized, “I’m on this Western saddle—no helmet because I’m playing an old timey lady.”
“This horse jumps and bucks me off in the craziest way,” Wilde recalled, “and I fell off and I hit my head and my back and I was laying and I was on this other side of this kind of lip of dirt, meaning that the 40 horses behind me couldn’t see me.”
At that point, Wilde admitted she was preparing for the worst.
“I had my ear to the ground and it sounded like thunder,” she detailed, “Like they were coming toward me and I had the thought, it sounds dramatic, but I thought, ‘It’ll be quick. It’ll be like pulverized apple sauce—out.’”
Ian West/PA Images via Getty Images/Brianna Bryson/WireImage
To her surprise, though, the White Lotus alum was quick on his feet—or rather, his horse.
“In a split second, [he turned] his horse sideways right in front of me and let everyone kind of bash into him,” Wilde shared. “He’s a great rider so he was able to handle that and people split the two sides around us—thinking he had just gone insane but he was protecting my body on the ground.”
Reflecting on the moment, she emphasized of the now-54-year-old, “I owe him my life—he’s a real life hero.”
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