Meryl Streep Nearly Drowned Making This Intense '90s Thriller With Kevin Bacon

Throughout moviemaking history there have been numerous accidents that endangered major actors' careers, from George Clooney injuring his spine on "Syriana" to human stunt machine Tom Cruise ruining his ankle jumping across rooftops for "Mission: Impossible — Fallout." But Meryl Streep almost became one of several actors to have actually died on-set due to a mishap on her and Kevin Bacon's 1994 action thriller "The River Wild." While filming a scene in which she had to paddle a raft into a tight space, the raft flipped over and Streep was pulled under, causing her to seriously consider what might happen if she never made it back to the surface.

"The River Wild" remains a somewhat overlooked early 90s thriller despite the fact it starred two legends in Bacon and Streep. The former plays a criminal called Wade, who, alongside his partner, Terry (John C. Reilly), hunts Streep's Gail Hartman and her husband, Tom (David Straitham), along a river and through the surrounding woods. The movie was a hit at the box office and even earned two Golden Globe nominations, but it didn't really maintain a foothold in pop culture and has since faded from the collective consciousness.

That's a shame — not only because the movie is actually pretty good, but because Streep literally risked her life for one of the shots. As the actor told the Orlando Sentinel back in 94, the scene in question was filmed after Streep had already exhausted herself by paddling since the crack of dawn. After a lunch break, filming resumed and the actor dutifully went ahead with a scene that seemed simple enough, but ended up nearly killing her.

With "The River Wild," Meryl Streep was clearly determined to prove she could hang with the best action heroes of all time. Despite being exhausted from filming all day, she agreed to shoot one extra scene which ultimately proved to be near-fatal. After initially telling director Curtis Hanson that she couldn't go back in the water due to her exhaustion, the actor pushed on. "[Hanson] needed just one more take," she explained to the Orlando Sentinel. "And, really, this particular stunt looked like nothing. All I had to do was paddle the raft into this hole where the water surges up between a few rocks."

But after agreeing to shoot the scene in question, Streep soon found herself being pulled under the water, which as the report notes was "particularly angry that day." She continued: "The boat surfed down into the hole, rose and flipped over and I went into the river. I remember sinking down to the bottom with this powerful and freezing water pulling me in deeper." At that moment, she surely regretted agreeing to star in "The River Wild," especially since she had absolutely no comparable experiences. "This was so outside my experience as a woman who grew up in New Jersey," she said, "and was a cheerleader and went to an Ivy League school."

Still, despite what must have been a truly terrifying experience, Streep seemed to maintain a sense of humor about it. "My first thought was that if I died my husband would come to the set with a machete," she added.

"The River Wild" isn't remembered as one of Meryl Streep's best movies, but there's no questioning her commitment. It was filmed mostly on the Kootenai River in Western Montana and according to a report from the Los Angeles Times, the rapids were so gnarly they "obscure[d] director Curtis Hanson's shout of 'Action' through his megaphone." There were several safety technicians in kayaks to ensure Streep's safety, but even then riding the "thundering rapids" must have been daunting to say the least.

Still, Streep remained remarkably calm. In fact, she claimed to the Orlando Sentinel that, following her accident, she actually surprised herself. "I was really very quiet and not scared," she said, "which is not at all how I thought I'd react under these circumstances." Thankfully, the actor managed to escape after the river carried her 500 yards from the crew, where one of the safety kayakers picked her up. "When I got to the shore my legs actually went out from under me," she said. "My heart was just pounding and I tried to be calm when I said, 'I really feel quite sure if I say that I'm too tired to do something that we have to assume I'm telling the truth.'" After that, Curtis Hanson listened to his star more closely.

At least Streep's brush with death got some recognition. "The River Wild" made $94.2 million on a $45 million budget and debuted to solid reviews, with Quentin Falk of the United Kingdom's Sunday Mirror writing, "Meryl Streep proves she's an all-acting heroine." In 2023 "The River Wild" even received a remake/standalone sequel starring Adam Brody and Leighton Meester, but it went straight to video and nobody paid much attention. Thankfully, nobody nearly perished on that one.