Ryan Reynolds passed out and had to breathe in a paper bag between takes while filming 'Buried'

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Ryan Reynolds passed out and had to breathe in a paper bag between takes while filming 'Buried'
Ryan Reynolds starred in the 2010 movie "Buried." The performance took place in a box.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
  • In "Buried," Ryan Reynolds played a civilian truck driver based in Iraq, who was buried alive in a coffin.
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  • While filming the 2010 film, the actor told David Letterman that he passed out several times.

    Ryan Reynolds briefly lost consciousness while filming his 2010 film "Buried."

    The actor recently described the harrowing experience for David Letterman in the fourth season of "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman," streaming now on Netflix.

    In "Buried," Reynolds portrays Paul Conroy, a civilian truck driver working in Iraq, who wakes up buried alive inside a coffin. He struggles to escape his confinement with the help of a Zippo lighter and a cell phone. At one point, his character tells emergency services, "Please help, I'm scared."

    Reynolds told Letterman "out of all" of his films, "Buried" was "actually really tough."

    "Almost everything you see in the movie was one take with the exception of a couple moments where I passed out," he said. "The thing I wasn't ready for or realized when I was shooting is when you're out of breath, and you're not moving to accommodate the increased oxygen in your blood, you pass out."

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    "There was one sequence in the movie where I had a paper bag and I would breathe into this paper bag as much as possible before the take," Reynolds continued. "And then when I came to, somewhere in the middle of the take I would grab it, breathe, breathe, we'd wait for a beat and then keep going."

    Ryan Reynolds passed out and had to breathe in a paper bag between takes while filming 'Buried'
    Ryan Reynolds in 2010's "Buried."Warner Bros.

    Reynolds explained why he chose a role that Letterman described as being "the guy in the coffin for ninety minutes."

    "It was a purely shallow decision," he replied Reynolds, adding that he agreed to the role because the Rodrigo Cortés-film reminded him of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

    Letterman joked that he should have received a huge check from "the Zippo people" for his performance.

    "I can't believe I have fingers still," said Reynolds of using the flip lighter. "That thing is hot!"

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