Felicity Jones recounts her harrowing real-life balloon crash while filming 'The Aeronauts'

• Felicity Jones talked to Business Insider about the crash landing she experienced while making "The Aeronauts."
• On the first day of shooting, she and costar Eddie Redmayne were brought up 3,000 feet in a gas balloon to shoot a scene.
• However, on the descent down, the balloon missed its landing and, Jones said, "We hit these trees and came down at this velocity toward the ground and Eddie and I were holding hands thinking this could be it."
• Jones said they did not suffer any injuries.
• "The Aeronauts" opens in select theaters on Friday and will be available on Amazon Prime December 20.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

"The Aeronauts" is a thrilling look at the true-life gas balloon flight in 1862 that broke a world flight altitude record. And to pull it off, its stars went through a harrowing ordeal.

Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne reteamed for the first time since the acclaimed 2014 movie, "The Theory of Everything," to play balloon pilot Amelia Wren and weather scientist James Glaisher, who travel close to 40,000 feet in the air and must toil through harsh weather and debilitating high altitude through their 90-minute trip.

Though the actors didn't get as high up in the sky as their characters in the movie, for some shots they were in a real working gas balloon a few thousand feet in the air.

In fact, the first day of shooting, director Tom Harper had Jones and Redmayne as high as 3,000 feet to do a shot in which Jones' Wren character sits atop a hoop hanging above the basket. There were no stunt doubles. That was really the two actors.

"It was quite an extraordinary feeling to be doing any movement in a balloon at that height," Jones told Business Insider. "It was pretty daunting but it was a real adrenaline rush."

But things turned scary on the day when it was time to land the balloon.

One of the producers of "The Aeronauts," Todd Lieberman, told Business Insider that too much of the sand bags that balance the basket were let go on the balloon's descent back to the ground and it veered off course from its intended landing place.

"It's very peaceful when you're up in the air but the landings can be your punishment for such a lovely time floating," Jones said, looking back. "We hit these trees and came down at this velocity toward the ground and Eddie and I were holding hands thinking this could be it and we were thrown backwards."

Jones said everyone was okay, but at one point she was was afraid that she got injured.

"The crack of the basket made me think, 'How's my back?'" she said. "We were a little shaken up but other than that we were fine."

Lieberman knew from that point on his stars' time in the air was over.

"The cameras had finished filming by then but the sound continued," Lieberman said of the crash. "I ended up listening to the recording of that crash and let me just say as a producer it gave me pause of putting them up again in the air."

For the rest of filming, according to Lieberman, Jones and Redmayne filmed in a soundstage or on a basket hanging on a 180-foot crane. The rest was done by the stunt crew.

Jones said the experience actually helped her and Redmayne's performances for the rest of shooting.

"It was food for us," she said. "We knew exactly how to react. We did it the method way."