The Painful Injury You Didn’t See in Bryce Dallas Howard’s Spider-Man Rescue
Saved by Spider-Man, bruised in real life: Bryce Dallas Howard says a Spider-Man 3 stunt left her feeling dragged by a truck — and the aftereffects still linger.
Getting saved by Spider-Man does not always feel like a save. Bryce Dallas Howard says some of the Gwen Stacy stunts in Sam Raimi's third Spidey movie left her banged up enough that a doctor later compared it to being dragged by a truck. Fun!
What she shared at LA Comic Con
At LA Comic Con on September 27, Howard (now 44, and yes, also of Jurassic World fame) looked back at Spider-Man 3 and how dialed-in that crew was by the time they hit the threequel. She described the production like a tight little company or even a traveling circus that knew its show inside and out and kept trying to top itself for the audience. That tracks if you remember the Raimi era always swinging for the fences.
She also got a bit inside baseball about stunts. In her words (paraphrased): actors want to do as much as they can, but they work closely with the stunt choreographers, coordinators, and performers, and those teams know exactly when to take over. She said she trained hard and was enthusiastic about doing what she could, but some of those 'caught by Spider-Man' beats came with a price. At one point on stage, she grabbed her left shoulder to illustrate it and noted that the snap of the harness can kind of yank your arm out a bit. She still feels it sometimes.
The painful punchline
After the panel, she told People that her osteopath took one look at her and asked a very specific question. Her response is the kind of line you frame:
"Were you dragged by a truck?"
"No. I was rescued by Spider-Man, of course."
For the record, Howard played Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3, the third installment in Raimi's franchise. And apparently, even a superhero rescue can leave a mark.