Key Points
Olivia Wilde is sharing a frightening near-death experience.
The actress and director said she nearly died on the set of Cowboys & Aliens but that Walton Goggins saved her life.
“He’s a real-life hero,” she said.
Hold your horses! Olivia Wilde is remembering the time Walton Goggins saved her life on the set of Cowboys & Aliens.
During a recent visit to the Armchair Expert podcast, the 42-year-old Invite director revealed that Goggins, 54, prevented her from getting trampled after she was unexpectedly bucked off her horse while shooting the 2011 space Western.
“Walt Goggins saved my life on that movie,” she told host Dax Shepard. “He did. I had a very bad horse accident, and he saved me.”
Wilde in ‘Cowboys & Aliens’
Credit: Universal
Wilde, a lifelong equestrian, explained that the incident occurred two months into filming the Jon Favreau-directed project.
“It was me and Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford galloping, like, full sprint across the desert with 40 horses behind us,” she recalled. “And it was like we were leading the charge to fight the aliens or whatever.”
As they sped forward, Wilde spotted a “large ditch” in front of her and knew in an instant that her horse was going to try to leap over it.
“So sure enough, this horse jumps and bucks me off in the craziest way,” she said. “I fell off. I hit my head and my back, and I was laying [on the ground] but, unfortunately, I was on the other side of this kind of lip of dirt, meaning that all horses behind couldn’t see me. And there was also a lot of dust.”
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In that moment, Wilde recognized that she was likely going to die. “I remember having my ear to the ground and I could hear it and it sounded like thunder, like they were coming towards me,” she continued. “And I had the thought — it sounds so dramatic — but I thought, it’ll be quick. It’ll be like, pulverized applesauce. Out.”
It was as she was “waiting for it to happen” that Goggins spotted her fall and shielded her from harm. “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,” Wilde said. “And he’s a great rider, so he was able to handle that.”
The other riders, in turn, noticed Goggins’ strange maneuver and navigated around him. “People split the two sides around us thinking he had just gone insane, but he was protecting my body on the ground,” she said.
Wilde added, “And so I owe him my life. It’s crazy. He’s a real-life hero.”
Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Cowboys & Aliens follows an unlikely trio of individuals — played by Ford, Craig, and Wilde — as they work together to save a group of townsfolk after they get abducted by aliens. The film also starred Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Clancy Brown, and Wyatt Russell.
Even with her frightening near-death experience, Wilde described working on Cowboys & Aliens as “the most fun I’ve ever had” on the set of a film. “It was like riding horses with Han Solo,” she said. “It was literally Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig and me and Sam Rockwell, who became one of my best friends.”
Listen to Wilde discuss the accident in the clip above.
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