Idris Elba Thought He Was Shot Making 'American Gangster', Says Ridley Scott: He 'Dropped to the Sidewalk'

Idris Elba experienced a big scare while filming a scene for 2007's American Gangster.

Ridley Scott, the 83-year-old House of Gucci director, recently recalled filming a scene that had Denzel Washington's character Frank point a gun at Elba's Tango, firing at him in the head on a crowded sidewalk in broad daylight. In a new interview, Scott told The Daily Mail that he instructed Elba to lean his head onto the barrel of the unloaded gun so the recoil would add realism.

"[Frank is] in the cafe and he says, 'Just stay here' and he goes out and all his brothers are watching, and he goes down the street and Idris Elba is standing there saying, 'Hey, what are you going to do, shoot me, Frank? Go on, shoot me Frank in front of all these people.' And he just goes boom and shoots him on the spot," Scott explained of the sequence.

The Oscar nominee continued, "What happened was I said to Idris, 'Listen, when he puts the gun to your head, lean on the gun.' Because, by the way, this is a gun with a solid barrel; there is no aperture. I would never risk it. But when you pull the trigger there's a recoil. There's no blank, nothing. So I said, 'I want you to lean on the gun.' "

Scott said Elba, now 49, fell to the ground while filming the scene, thinking he'd actually been shot: "He pulled the trigger and it goes bang. Idris thought he'd been shot and dropped to the sidewalk and said, 'I've been shot!' "

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Paul Biddiss, a weapons expert who serves as a technical consultant on major Hollywood films, explained to the outlet how the prop gun worked.

"A solid barrel is a completely filled in barrel that no bullet would be able to pass through, so it was a completely deactivated impractical gun as far as firing anything was concerned," he said. "But he was still able to create a recoil effect for the film's purposes by using something used in films called a UTM round, which can be put in a weapon that has had the barrel completely filled and it still causes a blowback. ... It can be used repeatedly for a recoil effect each time. It's quite often used in close-up execution shots in films."

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Lady Gaga recently praised Scott in a New York Times article, saying about working with him on House of Gucci: "I've never had a better experience with a director. He loves artists, and some directors don't. They love themselves."

Elba has since starred in various action films involving firearms, including recent films like The Suicide Squad and The Harder They Fall. The British actor told Esquire back in 2017 that he was initially hesitant about playing the part of the Gunslinger in The Dark Tower given the heavy gun use.

"I had a clash of conscience with my character. In America, there's a real awareness of gun culture," he said at the time. "I had to break down why he's good at shooting. We erred on the side of 'This is his tool. It's set in this world that's part of Stephen King's imagination, and it is what it is.' ... I'll probably be crucified by the film company for even mentioning this."

House of Gucci is now playing in theaters.