As Hollywood’s foremost daredevil, Tom Cruise clearly doesn’t have any issues putting his own life on the line when shooting a movie; such is the actor’s dedication to performing the most dangerous and death-defying stunts imaginable.

Naturally, it comes with its own set of risks, as he’s discovered more than once. Cruise shattered his ankle when leaping between buildings in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, but remained so steadfastly professional that he refused to break character until he limped off-camera, and that was the take that ended up in the movie.

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There have been plenty of scrapes, bangs, and bruises over the decades, including one dicey moment during The Last Samurai when he could have been decapitated. Cruise may have brushed off the incident, which would have made the diminutive star even shorter, but he draws the line at his co-stars, almost having their heads forcibly removed from their shoulders.

As one of the industry’s marquee action icons, anyone who signs on to join Cruise on one of his high-octane adventures generally has a pretty good idea of what they’re letting themselves in for. However, 1988’s romantic dramedy Cocktail, arguably the worst film of his entire career, wasn’t one of those pictures.

Cruise’s eager Brian Flanagan works as a bartender to pay his way through college and make his way into marketing, only to run afoul of his mentor and boss when his so-called friend sleeps with his girlfriend. Retreating to Jamaica hoping to open his own bar, a second shot at love emerges when he meets Elisabeth Shue’s Jordan Mooney.

It doesn’t sound like the sort of feature that would cause an incident, but Cruise accidentally taking a knee to the face from Gina Gershon pales in comparison to Shue’s near-death experience. As crew member Bill Bennett revealed, the helicopter that captured aerial footage would have taken Shue’s head clean off if it hadn’t been for her colleague’s timely intervention.

The actors wanted to watch the playback, so the chopper only stayed grounded for a few moments at a time, leaving the tail-end rotors running. “If you walk into it, it will kill you instantly,” Bennett accurately surmised. Undeterred, Shue “took off suddenly, running towards the back of the helicopter.”

“Tom is a pilot, rated in both aeroplanes and helicopters and instantly saw the danger,” he continued. “He lunged after her but only was able to grab her legs, tackling her to the ground. He rolled her over, dragging her at the same time, and you could see the momentary anger on her face while she was yelling, ‘Why did you do that?’”

Little did Shue know that the reason Cruise had wrestled her to the ground was to prevent her from being transformed into a bloody pulp of brain matter. Presumably, her anger quickly dissipated when she realised she was subjected to a rugby tackle for the purpose of saving her life.