Olivia Wilde owes Walton Goggins her life. The Invite director recently opened up about a horse accident that nearly killed her on the set of Cowboys & Aliens in 2011, revealing how the actor saved her in a split-second act of bravery.
During an appearance on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, the 42-year-old actress described the moment. She and her co-stars—including Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford—were filming a battle scene galloping across the desert with 40 horses thundering behind them.
Then everything went wrong. "This horse jumps and bucks me off in the craziest way," Wilde recalled. "I fell off and I hit my head and my back and I was laying on this other side of this kind of lip of dirt, meaning that the 40 horses behind me couldn't see me."
Trapped and terrified, Wilde braced for impact. "I had my ear to the ground and it sounded like thunder," she shared. "I thought, 'It'll be quick. It'll be like pulverized apple sauce—out.'" She was wearing no helmet because she was playing "an old timey lady" and had no escape route.
That's when Goggins became her saviour. "In a split second, [he turned] his horse sideways right in front of me and let everyone kind of bash into him," Wilde explained. The now-54-year-old actor used his body and horse as a shield, absorbing the impact of the stampede while splitting the herd around them.
"He's a great rider so he was able to handle that," Wilde said. "I owe him my life—he's a real life hero."
