Joseph Gordon-Levitt Puts His Body On The Line For ‘Premium Rush’

Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks like the typical smooth action hero in a trailer for the upcoming thriller Premium Rush, darting in and out of traffic on a bike. But in real life the action-packed traffic scenes got a little too close for comfort for Gordon-Levitt, who got into a couple of high-speed accidents while filming the movie.

In his first movie since The Dark Knight Rises, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a bike messenger who has to deliver a mysterious package while being chased around Manhattan. As the movie was filming a scene in New York, Gordon-Levitt got into a little trouble with a motorist after losing control of the bike, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt recalled the incident to BlogTalkRadio.com:

“Early on in the shoot, probably day two or three, I was just warming up before we got our first shot and I was riding around without a brake which was silly. If you do that you should be a better cyclist. I got to be good but if you ride around without a brake you need to be very good, so that was foolhardy of me to be riding around without a brake. And I took off someone’s side mirror!”

The driver was furious at first, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt smoothed over the incident by telling the man that production would pay for the damages.

“The guy was relatively cool about it; he was pissed at first which was a little intimidating,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt recalled. “I was apologetic and told him I was in the middle of shooting a movie and they (producers) will totally pay for your mirror. (I told him), ‘Just tell them about it but I gotta go!’ He came to the set and they paid for his mirror.”

But that wasn’t the end of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s accidents on the set of Premium Rush. He also smashed through the rear window of a taxi in a stunt gone wrong, getting a nasty gash in his arm that required 31 stitches.

Despite the crashes and injuries, Joseph Gordon-Levitt told MTV News that it was actually the action that drew him to Premium Rush.

“The first time I read the script for ‘Premium Rush,’ I was in the middle of shooting ’50/50,’ a movie where I was playing a guy battling cancer whose body is giving up on him,”  JosephGordon-Levitt recalled. “So to play a guy who’s really confident and healthy in his body, the idea of going to New York City and riding every day and getting in shape really appealed to me.”