On the set of American Gangster, Idris Elba had a harrowing experience.

Ridley Scott, the director of the film, told the Daily Mail that Elba believed he’d been shot by Denzel Washington after Scott fooled him with the recoil of an empty pistol.

The 83-year-old filmmaker was reminiscing about the 2007 mafia film, recalling a moment in which Frank Lucas (Washington) pulls a pistol on Tango (Elba).

“[Frank] goes down the street and Idris Elba is standing there saying, ‘Hey, what are you going to do, shoot me, Frank? Go on, shoot me Frank in front of all these people.’ And he just goes boom and shoots him on the spot,” director Ridley Scott told The Daily Mail of the scene.

“What happened was, I said to Idris, ‘Listen, when he puts the gun on your head lean on the gun’ – because by the way this is a gun with a solid barrel, there is no aperture, I would never risk it – but when you pull the trigger there’s a recoil, there’s no blank, nothing,” the filmmaker explained.

“He pulled the trigger and it goes ‘Bang’. Idris thought he’d been shot and dropped to the sidewalk and said, ‘I’ve been shot!’”

While Idris must have had a few anxious moments, Ridley’s guns expert Paul Biddiss assured him that he was never in danger and described how it worked.

Biddiss explained: “What he was referring to by a solid barrel is a completely filled in barrel that no bullet would be able to pass through, so it was a completely deactivated impractical gun, as far as firing anything was concerned.

“But he was still able to create a recoil effect for the film’s purposes by using something used in films called a UTM round, which can be put in a weapon that has had the barrel completely filled, and it still causes a blowback.

“It is like a small silver case with compressed air that reacts. It can be used repeatedly for a recoil effect each time.

“It’s quite often used in close-up execution shots in films.”

Alec Baldwin’s unintentional misfire of a toy pistol on the set of his film Rust ignited a discourse about gun safety inside the industry, prompting the Gladiator director’s remarks. In New Mexico, the 63-year-old 30 Rock star fired a prop weapon, injuring director Joel Souza and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

After the event made news in October, Baldwin wrote, “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family. My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”