By Gabriella Ferlita
Idris Elba thought he had been shot after director tricked him on the set of American Gangster.
The film, starring the likes of Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Lynmari Nadal and Carla Gugino, is a crime drama based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas.
The gangster smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War before being arrested by a crew led by detective Richie Roberts.
Ridley Scott, who directed the infamous 2007 film, admitted that Elba believed he'd really been injured by his cruel prank - which saw Denzel Washington putting a gun against the forehead of Elba's character Tango.
To add authenticity and illicit a natural reaction from Elba, Scott told the actor to "lean on the gun", so that he would be startled by the recoil whilst they filmed the scene.
However, safety-conscious director Scott ensured that the gun was empty, without even the use of blanks in the gun during filming.
Scott's reveal about the insistence of gun safety on his set comes as Alec Baldwin faces an imminent lawsuit for the accidental shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins last month.
Baldwin fired the gun that killed Hutchins accidentally on the set of his film Rust in New Mexico on 21 October.
Scott told the Daily Mail about the scene in American Gangster: "What happened was, I said to Idris, 'listen, when he puts the gun to your head lean on the gun' because, by the way, this is a gun with a solid barrel (a completely filled in barrel in which no bullet would be able to move through), there is no aperture, I would never risk it - but when you pull the trigger there's a recoil, there's no blank, nothing.
"So I said, 'I want you to lean on the gun'.
The forceful rebound from the gun pressed against Elba's forehead caused him to automatically fall to the ground thinking he'd fatefully been shot by a bullet from Washington.
Scott said: "He pulled the trigger and it goes 'Bang!' Idris thought he'd been shot and dropped to the sidewalk and said, 'I've been shot!'"
By avoiding the use of blank bullets, which are the outer casings with gunpowder that explode without a bullet or projectile, the director avoided a tragic scenario that led to the death of American actor Jon-Erik Hexum - which was caused by a blank.
Hexum was playing around on the set of the television show Cover Up in 1984 when he loaded a revolver with a blank, put the gun to his head and fired.
Although he wasn't killed by a projectile coming out because it was a blank, the force of the gun's blast against his head concussed him, and in turn, fractured his skull.
Hexum sadly died days later in hospital, at just 26-years-old.
Featured Image Credit: Universal PicturesTopics: idris elba, News