Olivia Wilde has revealed that “real-life hero” Walton Goggins saved her from a gruesome death on the set of Favreau’s 2011 sci-fi Western film Cowboys and Aliens.
Based on Scott Mitchell Rosenberg’s graphic novel of the same name, the film starred Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, while Wilde, Goggins, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach, Paul Dano, and Noah Ringer featured in supporting roles. When stopping by Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Wilde said that she “had a very bad horse accident” during filming and that “Walt Goggins saved my life on that movie.”
In the film, which takes place in 1873, Wilde detailed an action scene where she, Craig, and Ford were “galloping full sprint across the desert with 40 horses behind us and it was like we were leading the charge to fight the aliens.”
Wilde pointed out that while she has ridden horses her entire life, she was confident with riding English style, and “this was Western, different.” She added, “We were at that point, like two months in, and we got real cocky with it. And we were pretty competitive.”
Wilde continued, “We got to a part where I could see ahead of us that there was a large ditch, like a six-foot ditch. And I was like, ‘This horse is going to jump that ditch.’ And I’m on this western saddle, no helmet, because I’m playing like an old-timey lady.” Suddenly, the horse jumped and bucked her off “in the craziest way.”
Wilde fell, hitting her head and back. As she was laying on the ground, a “lip of dirt” hid her from the horses stampeding toward her. “There was also a lot of dust,” she said, “I remember having my ear to the ground and I could hear it and it sounded like thunder, like they were coming towards me. And I had the thought — it sounds so dramatic — but I thought, ‘It’ll be quick. It’ll be like, pulverized applesauce.’ Out.’”
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Enter: Goggins, who spotted her ahead of him and “in a split second thought to turn his horse sideways right in front of me and let everyone kind of bash into him.” Wilde said, “People split the two sides around us thinking he had just gone insane, but he was protecting my body on the ground. And so I owe him my life.”
Wilde is currently promoting her excellent third directorial feature film, The Invite, an adaptation of the 2020 Spanish movie The People Upstairs.
