Gerard Butler says he ‘almost killed’ Hilary Swank while filming 'P.S. I Love You’

P.S. 16 years later, Gerard Butler has a confession from the set of one of his early romantic movies.

During a recent appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” the Scottish actor shared a few behind-the-scenes stories from some of his most memorable movie roles, from “The Bounty Hunter” to “The Ugly Truth.” While reflecting on the past, the actor detailed a hilarious — albeit dangerous — moment when his character performed a sexy dance for Hilary Swank’s character in 2007 hit “P.S. I Love You.”

In the movie, Butler plays Gerry, a man who pens a series of letters to his wife, Holly (Hilary Swank), ahead of dying from a fatal illness to encourage her to embrace life without him.

Butler explained that prior to filming, he wanted his entire focus to be on Swank.

“I remember saying to the director, ‘I’m not going to think about myself in this movie,’” he explained. “‘I’m only going to think about her. Make sure she’s OK. She’s cool.’ Because that’s kind of who this (character) was. I’m going to tell you that made the experience so much more fun.”

Butler added that he really enjoyed working with the two-time Oscar winner.

“She’s so cool and so great to work with that I almost killed her,” the actor recalled to Barrymore before detailing a racy scene in the movie that almost turned into a disaster.

In the movie, Butler is clad in boxers and suspenders as Swank’s character watches him perform a sexy dance from bed. The scene reaches its comedic climax when the crocodile-designed clip on his suspenders snaps off and hits his character in the face.

“I literally shot that scene for a day and a half and had to dance like an idiot in these suspenders,” he noted before recounting how his character crawls toward Swank in the scene.

“The camera people had these plastic fronts to protect themselves from this crocodile. It was so dangerous,” he explained. “And I had to pick it, and it would go past my face. And this time, I’m crawling toward the bed. It gets stuck. It released, flies over my head, hits her in the head, and slashes her head. I mean ... you could even see the teeth of that. She has to get taken to hospital.”

While he's able to laugh about the incident in hindsight, Butler shared that, in the moment, the incident left him in tears.

“I’m just sitting there in my Irish boxer shorts and my boots and a pair of socks. And I just started crying,” he said with a laugh.

Looking back at his career, Butler recalled other funny and genuine moments shared with former co-stars, like Katherine Heigl in “The Ugly Truth” and Jennifer Aniston in “The Bounty Hunter.”

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This article was originally published on TODAY.com