During the second day of shooting “Safe House,” Ryan Reynolds accidentally injured Denzel Washington — twice. The pair was filming a fight scene in a speeding car that Reynolds was driving with Washington in the backseat trying to fight him. Amidst the struggle, the “Green Lantern” actor inflicted an injury upon his celebrated co-star. “He and I are in this out-of-control car and [the] corner of my head — I felt it hit his eye so hard I was sure that it split wide open,” Reynolds recalled on “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman” (via the New York Post). Thankfully for Reynolds, the Hollywood icon took it in stride. Always the consummate pro, Washington suggested they keep filming the scene, but from a different angle to hide his injured eye. As luck would have it, Reynolds repeated the mistake. “We did it again, and I got the other eye,” he recalled.
“Safe House” had a resurgence on Netflix in 2021, and Reynolds reminisced about giving Washington two black eyes in an Instagram post at the time. “He was fine because he’s Denzel Washington. But I still haven’t recovered. I never will,” the “Waiting…” actor joked.
At the time of the incident, the “Courage Under Fire” star played up his injury. “I tried to make him feel bad about it,” Washington told Indie Wire in 2012. “I was like, ‘I’ve never had a black eye in my life, but I can’t say that anymore.'”
