The On-Set Mishap With Jude Law That Seriously Injured Blake Lively
Stars — they're just like us! And by this we mean that they too, accidentally injure themselves. At least, this was the case with Blake Lively, albeit on a movie set.
Let's set the scene. Lively was co-starring opposite Jude Law in the 2020 action-thriller "The Rhythm Section," in which Lively played a woman obsessed with getting revenge on the people indirectly responsible for killing her family. "This was my first time precision driving," Lively told a reporter at the E! Red Carpet show, explaining that she performed her own stunts in the film. "I did fight training for this, swimming ... We did so many of our own stunts, because the way [director] Reed [Morano] likes to shoot, she likes the audience to feel like it's really happening."
Given her take, it sounds like Lively really put her best foot forward for the movie. Unfortunately, critics didn't necessarily feel the same way. Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com wrote, "Blake Lively gives it her all in 'The Rhythm Section,' but the movie only meets her halfway." Still, there's no denying that Lively's role involved some physical sacrifice IRL. For one scene, the actress honed her fighting skills alongside Law, whose character attacked hers out of the blue. Lively injured her hand shooting the sequence, later joking on X that she "gave [her] right hand to be in this movie." The accident ended up being a serious one, with Lively initially in the hospital and spending several weeks in recovery.
Blake Lively punched Jude Law's elbow during a fight scene
During a 2020 appearance on "Good Morning America," Blake Lively spoke about injuring her hand on-set. "I was lunging towards Jude Law with my fake rubber knife and my hand collided with his elbow and I broke some things, dislocated some things, and severed a ligament. It was pretty intense," Lively said (via People Magazine). The actress got even more graphic during an appearance on "The Tonight Show," telling host Jimmy Fallon, "I punched [Jude's] elbow, which you don't really want to punch someone's elbow, you want to aim for the face. My hand just basically turned into party confetti. It was just like, 'Pow' upon contact."
Lively's injury stopped production for six months while she underwent two surgeries. When she resumed filming, she had a bandage on her right hand. "We were only a few weeks into production, so most of the fight sequences that you do see in the movie are after that, which is why my hand is wrapped," she explained, to Extra. "There's a glass-hand injury that happens in the movie that wasn't real, we just had to explain the other injury."
Lively's brave performance drew praise from her co-star. In an interview with WhereIsTheBuzz, Law shared what he loved about the film, explaining, "It's really hard to get stuff, I think, understated and real and that's been the case both on-set and in the costumes." Of course, there was nothing understated about Lively's injury!
Blake Lively has done her own stunts before
It's admirable that Blake Lively acted as her own stuntwoman in "The Rhythm Section," but she's also done it before. In 2016, Lively starred in "The Shallows" as a woman in a fight for survival against an unusually vicious great white shark. The shark itself was mostly CGI, but Lively's stunts were very real. "They didn't hire a stunt double until the last two weeks of shooting. There wasn't a single scene that wasn't stunt-heavy," the actress told ET. In a separate interview with Entertainment Weekly, she reiterated the grueling physical nature of the film. "There's a scene where I'm swimming up to the buoy and I crack my face underwater and my nose is pouring blood and that was real," Lively said. She added that she was "proud" of her bloody nose because it demonstrated her willingness to sacrifice for her craft.
Though Lively found her breakout role as privileged party girl Serena Van der Woodsen on "Gossip Girl," it's clear she has a love for adventurous movie roles. Even as far back as 2012, Lively knew she never wanted to be pigeon-holed. "I choose characters that I don't think I can play, honestly," she said, via Vanity Fair. "I try to find things that are so unlike myself, and something that really challenges me."
To that we say, mission accomplished! Looks like Stephanie Patrick in "The Rhythm Section" is just another complex character for Lively to add to her repertoire.