Sydney Sweeney experienced my worst nightmare and was bitten incessantly by a huntsman spider while she was filming her highly anticipated romcom Anyone But You in Australia, leaving her screaming for her life. No thanks!!!!!!! I hate it!!!!!!!!
Sweeney recalled the horrid, shiver-inducing tale on a recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she discussed fearing she was going to die after the “real spider” she had to hold for the scene bit her.
“The thing just starts biting me, but we’re in the middle of the scene, and I’m supposed to be screaming, but then my screaming got a little serious,” she said.
“They thought I was making really serious dramatic choices in a rom-com. So no one cut.
“So I’m just standing there with this spider on my arm, biting me, and I’m screaming, and just everyone’s watching.”
“That was, like, a soul scream,” Sweeney added.
“I thought I was gonna die. Well, I was like, ‘It’s poisonous. I’m gonna die.’”
It wasn’t until her co-star and on-screen (and alleged off-screen) love interest Glen Powell realised something was wrong — he thought her fear was “a little too real — that anyone stepped in, and a medic attended to Sweeney.
Apparently the medic made a joke in the set’s notes about Sydney Sweeney having turned into Spider-woman — not knowing that she had just been cast as the actual Spider-woman in Marvel’s Madame Web. Wild.
Sweeney said she had to take medication for the bites which “hurt so bad” and left “horrible marks” on her hands. She also claimed she had to take the meds because “anything can kill you in Australia” and, okay, let’s not get carried away with the story, doll.
As we know in Australia, huntsman spiders are not dangerous — but they’re big and scary enough that I don’t blame Sweeney for fearing for her life. I’ve lived here all my life and despite the fact that I know they don’t mean any harm, I still shit my dacks every time I see one.
It’s not the first time the crew of Anyone But You have embellished the danger they were in while filming in Australia.
The film’s director Will Gluck told Entertainment Weekly that it was scary filming a scene where actors swam in Sydney Harbour at night because people “get hurt by sharks all the time” there.
“It was a little bit scary and strange at three in the morning with our actors swimming into a shark tank, knowing that they’re at a place where sharks like to hang out.”
While there definitely are a lot of sharks in Darling Harbour, it’s a bit of a stretch to imply that the sharks are out here attacking people all the time.
There have only been seven unprovoked shark attacks in the harbour between 1964 and 2014.
But still, I get how that would be scary — especially given Australia’s reputation for scary creatures.
You can watch the scene Sweeney was talking about in Anyone But You‘s trailer.
Image: Getty Images / Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic, iStock
