- Ryan Reynolds starred in the 2012 film "Safe House" opposite Denzel Washington.
- It features a scene with the actors fighting in a moving car on the streets of South Africa.
- Reynolds "wanted to die" after he accidentally gave Washington two black eyes during filming.
Ryan Reynolds accidentally gave Denzel Washington two black eyes during the filming of the 2012 movie "Safe House," and he's still pretty embarrassed by it a decade later.
He spoke about the incident on his episode of "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, which premiered on Friday.
Reynolds, who plays a CIA agent trying to interrogate Washington's character in the movie, told Letterman that on the second day of shooting they were filming a scene "in an out of control car" where he would "smash" Washington in "the face." According to Reynolds, the actors were not using stunt drivers as they were racing through the streets of Cape Town, South Africa.
"There's a scene in the movie where he crawls through the trunk in the back and he grabs me and chokes me. We were really driving a car at top speed," Reynolds told Letterman. "He and I are in this out of control car and my corner of my head — I felt it hit his eye so hard I was sure that it split wide open."
Reynolds was sure he would be let go, and possibly also killed, for planting a shiner on the Oscar winner. "I'm thinking I'm going to be sent home via crematorium, like, this is it, not only my career but my actual pulse will cease," he continued.
But Washington was gracious about it. "He was fine, he was like, 'Hey, accidents happen. Let's do it again and we'll shoot it from the other side so we can keep shooting so you don't see this,'" Reynolds recalled his costar saying. "I'm like okay great."
For a moment, Reynolds thought everything was going to be okay, but the second take was just as difficult. "We did it again, and I got the other eye, Dave," he said. "For a minute, he looked like a Christmas ornament."
All six new episodes of "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman" season four are now streaming on Netflix.
