EXCLUSIVE: Hollywood's Biggest Daredevils Revealed — We Reveal the Stars Who Risked It All to Make Sure Their Work Looked as Real as Possible
Hollywood's biggest daredevils risked it all to make their performances look as real as possible.
July 3 2026, Published 7:30 a.m. ET
These stars were willing to risk life and limb to make their reel work as real as possible.
Figure out, as Breaking Celebrity News reveals who they are.
Halle Berry said doing her own stunts on 'John Wick 3' and 'Bruised' has left her with frequent injuries.
Burt Reynolds
Much like Tom Cruise, Burt [Reynolds] was famous for doing his own stunts in his day. But one was just "a dumb macho thing to do." In 1972's Deliverance, "I went over the falls, and I hit a rock and cracked my tailbone. I [told] everyone I was a 31-year-old guy in great shape before I went over the falls."
Harrison Ford
"I don't do stunts. Stunt people do stunts; I do physical acting," Harrison [Ford] once claimed. Yet that acting has taken its toll over the years – from tearing an ACL on both Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Fugitive to breaking his leg on Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Halle Berry
Whether cracking ribs for John Wick 3 or the boxing pic Bruised, "it's par for the course when you do your own stunts, and I wouldn't have it any other way," shared Halle [Berry]. "I'm always getting injured. I don't like getting hurt. But I love pushing myself to those limits and then pushing myself through those limits."
Bruce Willis
Yippee-Ki-Ahhhh! While making 1988's Die Hard, Bruce [Willis] not only lost partial hearing when a gun went off too close to his ear, but he also nearly lost his life on the pic's first shot.
Jumping off a five-story garage, he almost missed landing on an airbag, prompting him to ask, "Why would you shoot this scene first? And they were like, 'If you were killed at the end of the movie... we'd have to reshoot the whole thing with another actor.'"
Dolph Lundgren's punch during 'Rocky IV' left Sylvester Stallone hospitalized with a bruised heart sac.
Sylvester Stallone
Yo! Doing his own stunts has injured his neck, shoulder and back, but Sylvester Stallone almost died of a broken heart on Rocky IV – literally.
"In the first round, where [actor Dolph Lundgren] knocked me down, that is for real. Later that night, my heart started to swell. He had bruised the pericardial sac. My blood pressure went up to 260. They thought I was going to be talking to angels."
Charlize Theron
In 2005's Æon Flux, Oscar winner Charlize Theron landed on her neck doing one stunt and "was a centimeter away from being paralyzed for the rest of my life." Nevertheless, she went on to make more action pics like Mad Max: Fury Road and Atomic Blonde. "There's definitely a switch in my brain. Something that says: 'If you can't go and do it all out, just don't touch it.'"
Gene Kelly inspired Tom Cruise's defense of performing his own stunts after breaking his ankle on 'Mission: Impossible – Fallout.'
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Patrick Swayze
If you want the ultimate, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price! Unfortunately, on 1991's Point Break, the words of Patrick [Swayze]'s character, Bodhi, almost proved prophetic.
"I never once came close to dying while skydiving," the late actor said, "but they never said anything about me getting my brains pounded by the biggest waves on this planet. I almost died between six and 10 times."
Tom Cruise
On 2018's Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Cruise "knew instantly my ankle was broken" when a jump between buildings went awry. And even though he's "broken a lot of other bones," his passion for doing his own stunt work remains undaunted. "No one asked Gene Kelly, 'Why do you dance? Why do you do your own dancing?'
