Jake Gyllenhaal’s injury while shooting ‘Road House’ with Conor McGregor

Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor are currently promoting ‘Road House’, a remake of Patrick Swayze’s 1989 famous film. In the film, the Oscar nominee plays Elwood Dalton, a retired UFC fighter who ends up working as a bouncer at a bar in Florida, while the historic Irish fighter plays one of his enemies.

Given the rivalry of their characters on the big screen, Gyllenhaal and McGregor were immersed in several fight scenes. While both have highlighted their mutual professionalism in making such sequences possible, the ‘Donnie Darko’ actor, in an interview with Dax Shepard, opened up on an injury he suffered on set.

What injury did Jake Gyllenhal have?

According to the 43-year-old actor, he was filming a fierce confrontation with McGregor when he got injured. During the scene, which involved broken glass, Gyllenhaal landed his hand on a bar and a piece of glass went through his glove and straight into his hand. The actor ignored the pain and went ahead with filming, as it was a sequence they had rehearsed on multiple occasions and he knew that shot “was the good one.”

Once the director called to cut, Gyllenhaal let out a scream and noticed that his entire arm had swollen. After a medical checkup, the actor discovered he had acquired a staph infection. Fortunately, it healed quickly and filming was able to continue.

“We’re fighting on the floor, fighting around tables, we’re fighting around glass,” the actor said, remembering that he then “put my hand on the bar” and placed it onto “f***ing straight glass”.

“I felt the glass going in my hand. I remember the feeling [and] went, ‘That’s a lot of glass,” Gyllenhaal said on Shepard’s podcast.

A staph infection, if not treated properly, can be dangerous, with Staph bacteria causing “more serious infections, like blood poisoning and toxic shock syndrome” according to the British National Health Service website. “Gratefully”, added Gyllenal, “I was really, really trying to take care of everything that we did and my body while we were doing it. I didn’t sustain any major injuries.”

The new version of ‘Road House’, directed by Doug Liman, will hit Amazon Prime Video screens in the United States next Thursday, March 21. In addition to Gyllenhaal and McGregor, the film also features performances by Post Malone, Daniela Melchoir and Lukas Gage.