The Fall Guy’s Hannah Waddingham Recalls the Time She Was Set on Fire

waThe Fall Guy makes stunt performers into the heroes of the movie, and one of the things that you’ll probably come out of it realizing is that stunts are a fairly dangerous business. But apparently, even if you aren’t “doing your own stunts,” per se, it’s not always the safest thing to be working around special effects and pyrotechnics. Who knew?! One example came from star Hannah Waddingham — and no, it wasn’t during her Game of Thrones work when she was accidentally set on fire by a visual effect. Instead, it was when she was appearing in The Wizard of Oz on London’s West End.

Apparently, one of the pyrotechnics malfunctioned, and before she could get off her flying broom, she was already ablaze. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to have been seriously hurt, and instead it’s just a cool story she gets to share with ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian.

“In the theatre, I was set on fire by mistake,” Waddingham said. “On my wires, in The Wizard of Oz, I was on my broomstick, playing the Wicked Witch of the West, as you do. And I had a feathery costume, and I has a finger flash to set fire to the Scarecrow, as you do, and it went off late, deviated, and set fire to my feathers….So it can go wrong, like that.”

Here’s how Universal describes The Fall Guy: “He’s a stuntman, and like everyone in the stunt community, he gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows, and dropped from the highest of heights, all for our entertainment. And now, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, this working-class hero has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right?

From real life stunt man and director David Leitch, the blockbuster director of Bullet Train, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and the producer of John Wick, Nobody, and Violent Night, comes his most personal film yet. A new hilarious, hard-driving, all-star apex-action thriller, and love letter to action movies and the hard-working and under-appreciated crew of people who make them: The Fall Guy.”

The Fall Guy is in theaters on May 3.