Exclusive

Warrior Hunks Injured: Broken Bones, Black Eyes and More

Find out what happened to Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton while making mixed martial arts action flick. "It was intense," says director

By Marc Malkin, Brett Malec Sep 08, 2011 11:35 AMTags
E! Placeholder Image

Ouch.

When ya sign up for a movie about champion mixed martial arts fighting, you have to expect to get a bit roughed up.

That's what happened to poor Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton while making their new action flick, Warrior.

How bad did things get? Well...

"Joel blew out his knee. He tore his ACL," director Gavin O'Connor told us at the movie's Hollywood premiere. "Tommy broke ribs, a finger [and] toes. A lot of black eyes.

"It was intense," he said. "We were trying not to act. That was the goal."

Training, no surprise, was also pretty intense. We did a couple of hours of jiu jitsu and boxing and then a couple hours of muay thai and some wrestling ever day and then some choreography and weight lifting," Hardy told E! News. That was seven days a week for eight weeks. Then we started filming."

The big question that no one really wanted to answer at the premiere: who would win in a real fight—Hardy or Edgerton? "We like each other too much to go down that road," Edgerton said. "But the way I see him dressed and all did up for Bane [in Batman], I reckon he would crush me like an anaconda."

Also at the premiere were the film's Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison and Frank Grillo, as well as Thor's Rene Russo and Dallas reboot star Jesse Metcalfe.