Austin Butler almost cracked a rib while filming Caught Stealing fight scene

Austin Butler almost cracked a rib when an actor headbutted him in the side during a fight scene for his new movie Caught Stealing.

In the new crime thriller, the Elvis star plays a former baseball player who finds himself unexpectedly caught up in a dangerous struggle for survival amid the criminal underbelly of '90s New York City.

Butler told Men's Health that director Darren Aronofsky put him "through the ringer" making the film, as his character Hank repeatedly gets beaten up. And rather than letting his co-stars take it easy on him, Butler wanted to fully commit to the fight for real.

"I get beaten up by these two Russians in this film. This one - Nikita (Kukushkin), who's a short king - he's got so much power. When he was kicking me, he didn't want to kick me very hard. He felt bad and I kept telling him, 'Just kick me. Just kick me harder,'" he said, noting that when he watched the footage back, the blows didn't "look real" enough.

"So he starts really laying into me and kicking me hard," Butler continued. "But then he had this idea of headbutting me in the side like a little ram or something. And he did it so hard it almost cracked my rib with his head. I was very impressed."

And that wasn't all - the Dune: Part Two actor also suffered for his art in a scene where he's thrown onto a table by his co-star Bad Bunny while he's "not wearing anything".

Butler explained that they originally used a foam table, but the stunt looked fake, so he was slammed onto a real wooden table without any hidden padding.

"It's little things like that with the camera angles, you can't use a stunt double," he added. "(I) did have an amazing stunt double, but for the most part, I'll just say, 'Yeah, let's go. I'll just deal with the bruises later.'"

Caught Stealing will be released in cinemas on 29 August.