Remember: Acid and face are never a good combo. 

Gerard Butler was “burning alive” after he accidentally rubbed acid into his face.

During an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the 300 actor shared that, while shooting his new action movie, Plane, in Puerto Rico, he had a nasty encounter with some corrosive fluid.

“I’m trying to find something that’s wrong with the plane before we can take off for this final sequence and it’s something in the wheel, so it’s a brake,” said Butler, 53. “So, I’m sticking my hand between these two wheels, pretending I know what I’m doing.

“And whatever’s in there, every time I bring my hands up, they’re covered in blood and green fluid. We’re also shooting in Puerto Rico so I’m covered in sweat. I must have been rubbing my face, and suddenly, it’s in my throat, it’s in my mouth, it’s up my nose, it’s in my eyes, it’s burning my face. And I mean burning.”

He continued: “It turns out this is essentially phosphoric acid.”

“And the airline pilots that were there watching go, ‘No!’”

Butler said the pilots also stopped the crew from throwing water on his face.”‘Don’t put water. It will make it worse!'” he said.

“And I’m just, like, burning alive,” he said. “It was intense.”

“But it was great for the sequence,” he said with a laugh.

In Plane, Gerard plays pilot Ray Torrance who has to land a storm-damaged aircraft in the middle of a warzone.

He then finds himself caught between the agendas of multiple militias who plan to take the plane and its passengers hostage.

As the world’s authorities and media search for the plane, Ray must rise to the occasion and keep his passengers safe for long enough for help to arrive.

During the Plane press tour, Butler also gave an update on the fourth instalment of his …Has Fallen franchise, which started with 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen, followed by 2016’s London Has Fallen and 2018’s Angel Has Fallen. The series, which stars Butler as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, has made over US$520 million (S$686 mil) globally.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Butler confirmed that the fourth film is being developed and it’s tentatively called Night Has Fallen.

“We have a script for that, but I haven’t been working on it at the moment,” he said. “We have a really fun idea, it just needs to be developed.”

And while it’s been fine-tuned, he wants to focus on other projects.

“But it’s been fun recently, making action. I will say — I want to play more the Tom Hanks of action movies,” he said.”Let me take a break from the Mike Banning, where it’s literally seven or eight full-on fight sequences in every movie, fist-fights.

“And actually claiming the characters that are real, who have to pull something extraordinary out of themselves that an audience can really identify with because that’s what we need right now.”

Watch Butler’s interview with Meyers here: