“Shazam! Fury Of The Gods” director David F. Sandberg has spoken about his surprise at getting Helen Mirren to agree to appear in the film in the first place. But even after confirming the Oscar winner, he was further shocked to find that Mirren was more than willing to do her own stunts, with the actress happily climbing into wires and rigs and the crew having to stop her from performing the most dangerous feats.
Unfortunately, they weren’t able to prevent her from injuring herself during one fight scene in which her hand met a concrete wall. As Mirren told SFX magazine:
“I’ve got my ‘Shazam’ finger… Can you see that? [shows SFX her hand]. That finger’s all bent. I had to hit someone. They’re brilliant stunt people, fantastic, but he said, ‘You must follow through, otherwise it doesn’t look right.’ So I did follow through, straight into a concrete wall.”
It’s unclear what kind of injury Mirren sustained as the actress doesn’t clarify whether she broke her finger or not. But if it was still, “all bent” during the press tour for the film, it sounds like it was a significant hit. Still, this sort of stuff is par for the course when you branch out into more physical roles, and Mirren has made a point of embracing action movies of late. But even in the “Fast And The Furious” franchise, she’s been perfectly happy behind the wheel, demonstrating her genuine love for the genre.