Sean Astin stepped on a massive shard of glass while filming the Fellowship of the Ring scene where Samwise Gamgee runs into a river after Frodo, completely piercing his prosthetic hobbit foot.

A closer look

Sean Astin stepped on a massive shard of glass while filming the Fellowship of the Ring scene where Samwise Gamgee runs into a river after Frodo, completely piercing his prosthetic hobbit foot. The glass went so deep into his actual foot that he had to be airlifted to a hospital for emergency stitches, putting a temporary halt to the most ambitious fantasy production of all time. Director Peter Jackson was famously terrified, mostly because they were filming in the middle of a remote New Zealand wilderness and a key actor was bleeding out in the mud. It turns out that putting actors in fake latex toes and forcing them to sprint through unregulated rivers is a massive safety hazard, but at least the agonizing pain resulted in a very convincing emotional performance