When you get cowboys and aliens in the same movie, you’re also going to have horses — and ended up being the root of an alarming incident for Olivia Wilde on the set of 2011 sci-fi flick “Cowboys & Aliens.”
To have her tell it, she got mixed up in “a very bad horse accident” while filming, and co-star Walton Goggins came through to save her life.
“Walt Goggins saved my life on that movie,” Wilde said. “He did. I had a very bad horse accident, and he saved me.”
The actress explained that in a shot of her riding a horse alongside Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and about 40 trailing horses, she was thrown from her mount after it made a jump over a hidden “ditch.” Wilde hit her head when she landed and was concealed by a “lip” in the ground so the oncoming horses could not see she was still on the ground.
“I remember having my ear to the ground and I could hear it and it sounded like thunder, like they were coming towards me,” Wilde said. “And I had the thought — it sounds so dramatic — but I thought, it’ll be quick. It’ll be like, pulverized applesauce. Out.”
She added: “Walt Goggins had seen it 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. And he’s a great rider, so he was able to handle that.”
The riders of other horses noticed Goggins’ maneuver and went around him rather than continuing on until it might have been too late to change directions. “The Invite” director was confident the move saved her.
“And so I owe him my life,” Wilde finished. “It’s crazy. He’s a real-life hero.”
Wilde and Goggins starred in the film alongside Ford, Craig, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Clancy Brown and Wyatt Russell. Her latest film, “The Invite,” is currently in limited Los Angeles and New York theaters and co-stars Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton. Wilde directed and stars.
