Eli Roth On Being 'Almost Killed' By Fire While Filming 'Inglourious Basterds'

Quentin Tarantino films have a distinctive style, most recognizably characterized by a crazy amount blood and guts. In one of the more memorable scenes from his 2009 revenge-on-the-Nazis movie "Inglourious Basterds," Sgt. Donny Donowitz, aka "The Bear Jew," literally shoots Hitler's face off in a burning French cinema. The sequence is unforgettable, but it almost came at the cost of several lives, according to Eli Roth, the actor who played Donowitz.

When Roth dropped by HuffPost Live to discuss his Shark Week talk show "Shark After Dark," host Josh Zepps asked about the scene and the danger it created for the cast and crew.

"Yeah, we were almost killed doing that sequence," Roth replied casually.

With the set being built on a "fire-stage," the fires in the scene were supposed to be controlled. But when the scene was actually filmed, with all the final set pieces like flags and seats actually in the room, the fires grew much bigger and hotter than expected.

"[The flames] were spreading so exponentially," Roth remembered. "They said if we were in there another 15 seconds, the stage we were on would have collapsed and we all would have been killed."

Roth and the crew luckily got out right before the situation could have taken a turn for the worst, but clearly no one is safe in Tarantino's world.

Watch Roth discuss this near-disaster in the video above, and click here for his full HuffPost Live conversation.

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