In his pummeling new action comedy "Caught Stealing,"Austin Butlergoes full rag doll. The chiseled heartthrob is repeatedly kicked, punched, thrown around, and shot at throughoutthe 1990s-set movie(in theaters Aug. 29), which follows Hank, a sidelined baseball star who's on the run from ruthless mafiosi. But Butler says the trickiest stunt involved singing a karaoke favorite. During a wild bacchanal at the New York dive bar where he works, Hank effortlessly vaults from the floor onto a pool table, belting out Meredith Brooks' snarling "Bitch" without missing a beat. The gravity-defying jump is performed in one long, seamless take. "It took a lot of time to figure out how to make it feel drunk and messy and free, but at the same time, there was a very specific camera movement of the camera pulling back," Butler recalls. Initially, a team of choreographers helped map out the memorable sequence, "but it just didn't feel right. We wanted it to feel like it was raw and happening for the first time." Join our Watch Party!Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox After some trial and error, director Darren Aronofsky left Butler to improvise the raucous singalong. "It was a long process," Aronofsky says. "Eventually, Austin put it together over a few takes just jamming, like, 'How about I do this?' or 'How about I do that?' But in terms of leaping from planet Earth to the top of the pool table, this incredible specimen had no problem doing it over and over again." "Caught Stealing" is almost certainly the most physically punishing movie of Butler's career. At first, both he and Aronofsky questioned whether he'd make it through production. The first day of filming last fall was in a dingy apartment stairwell, "and after walking up the stairs over and over again, he couldn't walk the next day," Aronofsky recalls. "On Day 1, you literally hear that your movie star can't run and you're about to start an action movie together. I was like, 'Ah, shoot, all hands on deck! We've got to figure this out.'" The filmmaker called on physical therapistMichelle Rodriquez, who worked with him on "Black Swan," to help find the root of Butler's problem. "I was like, 'Oh, man, I don't know what I'm going to do.' I'd had this pain in my foot for months and I'd been trying to figure out what it was," Butler says. "But Michelle was like, 'I don't think it's a nerve issue,' and then she literally took a scalpel and started cutting at my foot. She didn't even numb it!" Austin Butlerhas been in the industry for some time, but it wasn't until his star power in the biopic "Elvis" and "Dune Part Two" that he became a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood.Most recently, Butler will star in "Caught Stealing" with co-starsZoë Kravitzand Bad Bunny. Here's where else you've seen Butler. As it turns out, "I had a piece of glass stuck in my foot for eight months that I picked up in Korea on the 'Dune' press tour when I was barefoot on a red carpet," Butler says. "Thankfully, she cut it out and I was running two days later." "You would've been limping for the rest of your life had it not been for this movie!" Aronofsky quips. For Aronofsky, a native New Yorker, "Caught Stealing" was an opportunity for him to pay homage to the Brooklyn and Manhattan neighborhoods he frequented as a young man. Many sites in the film are East Village institutions: The graffiti-covered bar where Hank works, for instance, is actuallyDouble Down Saloon, where Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa similarly shot their "Prisoner" music video in 2020. The filmmaker also resurrected old favoritesKim's Video and Benny's Burritoswith the help of production designer Mark Friedberg. "He really knocked it out of the park," Aronofsky says. "That was such a huge thrill, trying to remember what New York was like back then and recreating it." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:'Caught Stealing' star Austin Butler recalls shocking foot injury
