Taylor Hickson, the 20-year-old actress who starred alongside Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool, is reportedly suing a production company after she received a gruesome injury while filming the movie Ghostland. Hickson, who was 19 at the time of the incident, suffered horrific cuts after she crashed through a glass door while filming the indie horror film.
According to Hickson, she was performing "an emotionally charged scene" in which she was asked to pound the door while her face was right next to it.
"In the course of shooting the scene, the director [Pascal Laugier], consistently told [Hickson] to pound harder on the glass with her fists,” the lawsuit states.
“At one point during the filming of the scene, and after being asked to increase the strength with which [she] pounded on the glass, [she] asked one of the producers and the director if it was safe to do so. That producer and the director both replied in the affirmative.”
While filming another take of the film, the suite states that:
"The glass shattered, causing [her] head and upper body to fall through the door and shards of glass. As a result of the incident, [she] badly cut the left side of her face” and was rushed to the hospital, where she received about 70 stitches."
In an interview with Deadline, Hickson said: “The crafts services lady held my face together with napkins in her hands. She went through so many napkins, there was so much blood.”
The actress says that the damage has been lasting: “It’s been mass amounts of insecurity, conflicted, confused, hurt, angry, and sad that this was my last day on set and no precautions were taken.”
The suit claims that Hickson “has since undergone treatment including laser treatment and silicone treatment, but over one year post-incident, has been left with permanent scarring on the left side of her face.
“It is unknown at this time if any further treatment, including plastic surgery, would reduce the visual appearance of the injury.”
Her lawyers also stated that before the incident Hickson “was a busy, up and coming actor in the very competitive movie industry," but “as a result of the injury, she has lost income [during] the period of time she was unable to act while she recovered from her injury.”
The suite also claims that Incident Productions “knew or ought to have known of the dangerous situation” it had placed her in, and that “the injury was reasonably foreseeable and was caused solely by the negligence and/or breach of contract by the defendant in that it failed in exercising the duty of care it owed to the plaintiff.”
Hickson also accuses the company of failing to take “any and all reasonable steps to ensure that industry standards and practices were adhered to, including but not limited to the use of safety glass and/or stunt doubles as appropriate.”
The suit adds: “It is an industry standard within the movie industry that, when shooting a scene such as the scene described herein, either safety glass be used which would, upon shattering, break into pieces which would not result in sharp shards on which an actor could be cut, and/or that a stunt double be used for such a scene. Neither occurred in this case.”
The film's premiere party will be held in Paris on March 14, but Hickson will not be in attendance.
“I never worked so hard on a production in my life, and now it’s a bittersweet way to end this piece of art that we worked so hard on,” she said.
Despite the incident, Hickson claims that she still hopes to reunite with her co-star Emilia Jones, who plays her little sister in the movie.
“She and her mom took care of me the night of the incident, after I came out of surgery and went back to the hotel. I look forward to seeing her again. We were looking forward to running around Paris for the premiere, but unfortunately, it would be too uncomfortable to attend. Emotionally – uncomfortable for all.”
In all honesty, it seems pretty outrageous that Hickson was told to bang on a glass door with no safety precautions in place. It's hard to see a way out of this for the production company, so no doubt that 20-year-old will be getting a hefty payout for the incident.