Jake Gyllenhaal says he had to remind Conor McGregor to not actually beat him up in fight scenes for new movie.
The Hollywood star goes up against the UFC legend in their new film Road House, which lands on Amazon this week.
Check out the trailer:
A reboot of the 1989 Patrick Swayze original, the long-awaited blockbuster sees the pair go toe to toe in a brutal battle over a beachside bar.
Gyllenhaal stars as Dalton, a moody, former UFC star, who is hired to sort out some thugs in the Florida keys.
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But while McGregor signed up to play the big bad villain in the thriller, Gyllenhaal says it all got a little bit too real at times.
Speaking to LADbible ahead of the release, the 43-year-old revealed that he felt a touch nervous when he went up against McGregor.
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"It was a bit scary at times," he tells us. "I mean, that first time where we go face to face, I was definitely intimidated, but then I thought to myself, the game level that he works at, with the skill that he has, it’s really, ultimately, a mind game, right?
"And they’re all playing it with each other all the time, and what I had, though I didn’t have the skills, what I did have was the experience in my field, so when we met in that moment, I tried to bring my history and my experience from my different field to him in that moment - and I think that’s what you see in that first shot."
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Now, that's all fine and well, but Gyllenhaal admits that there were points when he actually had to remind McGregor that they were acting in a film and not, in fact, in a title bout.
The Marvel star recalls: "He was guiding me through the grappling and he was giving me instruction in how to choke him out and do all these things, but ultimately… and I had to say to him a couple of times, like, remind him, ‘Remember, we’re in a fake fight, don’t actually punch me’ and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, right, right, right’
"And in those moments, where he’s, 'Right, right right’, you go, ‘Jesus, oh s**t’, but it was good fun."
Yeah, sounds like a riot, lad.
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But while Gyllenhaal admits he was pretty worried about his co-star's propensity for violence, it was actually the Notorious who ended up getting hurt.
The 35-year-old former double champ, says he was smashed in the head during one scene and suffered a nasty injury.
"I threw him over the bar about 20 times and he slammed the door in my head, I got a black eye and everything from the door," he recalls.
"And the director said, 'No, no, it's not doesn't look real enough do it again'. I said, 'I've done it f**king 10 times, what are you talking about?!' But it was a great, really great experience."
Road House will be available to watch on Prime Video from 21 March.
Topics: UFC, Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor McGregor, TV and Film, Amazon Prime
Dominic Smithers