J.J. Abrams Broke His Back on a 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Shoot
The force is really, really strong in this one.
Doing the press rounds for Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, which comes out today, and which he produced, J.J. Abrams still manages to come back to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, yet five months away. And for good reasons! Star Wars is the shit and shooting it is necessarily bananas. For instance, here’s what we learned Thursday night on The Daily Show: Abrams (who’s directing and producing Star Wars) broke his dang back on a shoot.
During a set mishap, real American hero Harrison Ford, a.k.a. the formerly young Han Solo, got his ankle caught and bent at a nasty, 90-degree angle. A door “had gone down, and I’m trying to help lift it up, because that’s the kind of guy I am,” Abrams told Jon Stewart. “I’m trying to lift up this door and I feel this pop in my back. I’m like ‘Uh, that’s weird.’” A few days later, Abrams’s doctor tells him plainly his back is broken. “I broke my L4 trying to lift this door.”
If in the unlikely event The Force Awakens doesn’t meet the world’s highest expectations, let’s be gentle on Abrams. It’s not as if George Lucas exactly broke his back making Revenge of the Sith.
