Real life superheroes: The celebrities saving people’s lives
NOT all heroes wear capes as some celebrities — including Ryan Gosling, Benedict Cumberbatch and Sydney’s own Home and Away star Orpheus Pledger — have shown, taking their superpowers off screen to save the day in the real world.
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AFTER seeing actor Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange or Australia’s own Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, it can be hard to forget that away from the special effects and scripts they are mere mortals.
After watching them save the world and battle evil, it’s easy to think actors share all the qualities their characters portray.
Luckily for us, then, the illusion need not always be shattered. A select few celebrities have proven their superpowers exist off-screen, leaping into action to play the hero in real life.
Which is exactly what Home And Away actor Orpheus Pledger did when he saw a woman being assaulted in Surry Hills while on his way home from the gym one Friday night.
The attack happened in April last year but Pledger could only recently speak publicly about the incident after it had been through the courts.
The star, who plays a student doctor, told how he kept an eye on the man who appeared to be “stalking” the woman. And when his fears were realised and the woman was attacked, he jumped in to pull the attacker off her.
He told The Daily Telegraph he did what anyone would.
“I got him off her and I restrained him and I was screaming out to someone, to anyone who was nearby, to give me help, to call the police,” he revealed.
“He was trying to run away but I had a hold of this guy, telling him ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ ”
Another off-screen hero is Jackman, who — reinforcing his good guy reputation — put his cut Wolverine physique to good use to rescue son Oscar and other swimmers from a rip at Bondi Beach in 2016.
Known for never missing an opportunity to take a dip at the famous beach when in town, Jackman noticed his son, then 15, in trouble and dived in to pull him and others onto the safety of a nearby sandbar.
The Avengers films have left many fans swooning over Benedict Cumberbatch’s take on indomitable protector of the earth Doctor Strange. But the actor himself intervened to save a delivery driver from a violent mugging in London last month.
Cumberbatch was in the back of an Uber when he witnessed four would-be muggers trying to rob a food delivery cyclist, who they had just struck over the head with a wine bottle.
Rather than simply calling police, the A-lister jumped from the car, screaming at the attackers until they ran off.
Ever humble, he later told London’s The Sun newspaper he was just doing what anyone would, saying: “There are real-life heroes out there and I’m not one of them.”
While undeniably heroic, the Brit’s actions have yet to match that of Ryan Gosling, who we’ll soon see as Neil Armstrong in the film First Man. The Canadian has found himself at the centre of three dramatic situations.
The first of his rescues was in 2011 — about the time he was showing the world his superhuman physique in Crazy, Stupid, Love — when the actor famously stepped in to break up a fight in the middle of a Manhattan intersection. He took things a step further, resolving the fight by paying from his own pocket for the allegedly stolen street art that sparked the fight.
He was back at it a year later, intervening to stop British author Laurie Penny from being hit by a taxi in New York.
Sharing her experience on Twitter, Penny was understandably as grateful as starstruck, writing: “Literally. That actually just happened … I was crossing 6th avenue in a new pink wig. Not looking the right way because I am from London. Ryan Gosling grabbed me away from a taxi.”
And it’s not just humans he saves. In 2016 when a dog ran in front of his car on a Palm Springs highway, he jumped out to scoop up the animal and carry it back to its grateful owner.
It’s not just actors becoming real-life heroes. Supermodel and Project Runway host Heidi Klum didn’t hesitate to put her own life at risk to rescue her son Henry, then aged seven, and two of the family’s nannies from rough surf while on a holiday to Hawaii in 2013.
Clad in just a bikini, Klum helped Henry to shore before showing superhuman strength, dragging one of the nannies out of the surf by her armpits. She then returned to help the second.
She later told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres a rip had formed when the weather turned quickly, and she had been very concerned for the two women.
“I had a hard time to get a grown-up out of the water, especially when they’ve been swimming for a while, like one of my nannies was in the water,” she said.
“It was hard to get her out. Henry was not as much in trouble as the grown-ups were, to be honest, because he’s a really good swimmer and he’s very strong, and I guess because he’s really athletic and he knows how to swim so well.”
Another star willing to undertake a high-risk real life mission is Steve Buscemi. Though he’s often cast as the villain, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Before his acting career took off, Buscemi spent four years working for the Fire Department of New York, stationed in Manhattan’s Little Italy.
And while he hung up his fire suit in the mid-1980s, he didn’t hesitate to jump back into action following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, returning to his former station to spend a week volunteering — working 12-hour shifts to help search for survivors.
He later said it had been a privilege to help out.
“It was great to connect with the fire house I used to work with and with some of the guys I worked alongside,” he shared.
“And it was enormously helpful for me because while I was working I didn’t really think about it as much (the enormity of the tragedy), feel it as much.”
It was also a firey rescue for Jamie Foxx that earned him a hero title, after pulling a driver from the wreckage of a burning truck that had rolled down a ditch near his Southern California home in 2016.
With the aid of an off-duty paramedic, Foxx cut the man free and dragged him to safety.
He later posted on Instagram an emotional photo with the driver’s father, saying: “This is all that matters. That a man, a son, a brother’s life was spared last night. God had his arms wrapped around all of us … No heroes … Just happy fathers.”
Kate Winslet too showed courage under fire in 2011, rescuing billionaire Richard Branson’s then 90-year-old mother Eve when a fire engulfed the house they were staying in on Branson’s private British Virgin Island’s retreat Necker Island.
After lightning struck the building during a heavy storm, the Titanic actor didn’t hesitate to run back inside to help the nonagenarian through the flames to safety.
Originally published as Real life superheroes: The celebrities saving people’s lives
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