“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and its eccentric group of pub-owning characters have tickled fans for decades, but nearly cost actor Danny DeVito his life, according to a New York Post interview Tuesday with author Kimberly Potts.
While the incident hasn’t been a secret, Potts shared new details to promote her upcoming book, “It’s (Almost) Always Sunny in Philadelphia: How Three Friends Spent $200 to Create the Longest-Running Live-Action Sitcom in History and Help Build a Network.”
DeVito was filming an underwater scene for Season 11’s “The Gang Goes to Hell: Part Two” with co-stars Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney, which required the star to be weighed down as the water level was raised.
“At one point, Danny got accidentally kicked, I think, in the shoulder — close to his head,” Potts told the Post. “As I’ve been told, he nearly drowned. It certainly had everyone afraid he was in trouble.”
She added, “He just quietly left, and the day was over for him. So even he has a threshold for how far he’s willing to go. But for the overwhelming majority, their experience with him is great. Kaitlin Olson has called him the happiest person she’s ever known.”
Day recounted the harrowing accident during a 2016 appearance on “Conan,” and recalled that DeVito was so “incredibly buoyant, like a buoy,” that he had to be weighed down for the scene, which saw the characters trapped in a room with a water leak on a cruise ship.
“And when the shot was over and we were all trying to get back to the surface for air, we all quickly got through the water, but because we weighed him down, he sort of got halfway and was going nowhere,” Day told host Conan O’Brien at the time.
“And that look of panic in his eyes of like, ‘This is the end, these guys killed me,’” he joked.
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Day noted that safety divers on set eventually retrieved DeVito, who was around 71 years old at the time. While many in his position might prefer not to joke about it, DeVito himself told “Extra” in 2017, “I have lived a good life and it flashed before my eyes in that scene.”
Potts said Tuesday that DeVito “was very frustrated by that situation,” however.
“It’s Always Sunny” became an unlikely success story for McElhenney and Howerton, who respectively created and co-developed the show by independently shooting the pilot for little money. Day later said he isn’t sure about the $200 figure often cited as the budget.
In 2009, Comedy Central acquired the show’s syndication rights.
While Howerton recently told the Post that a conclusion to the series has been discussed, the idea of ending the show for good continues to be revisited “year by year.”
“It’s Always Sunny” kicks off Season 17 in July.
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