Taron Egerton recalls scary plane landing that gave him ‘recurring nightmares’ for years

Taron Egerton may play a TSA agent in his holiday thriller Carry-On, but he was nervous about airline travel for years after experiencing a particularly frightening plane landing. 

While visiting Late Night with Seth Meyers on Monday, the actor revealed that the incident scared him so badly that he began having “recurring nightmares” about being in a plane crash every time he fell asleep onboard an aircraft. 

“The one that really messed me up was about five, six years ago. I was landing in Italy and the airplane, just as it was touching the runway, did a big dipper,” Egerton explained, making the scoop movement to show the plane nearly landing before shooting upward. “For about two years after, I’d have recurring nightmares about a plane crashing while I was on the plane.”

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His brain made sure the dreams it concocted were especially cruel, too. “My weird, creative way of thinking shot [the nightmares] like a movie, so I’d see it from all different angles,” Egerton said. “It was awful, really awful.”

He also has a few ideas about what may have gone wrong. “I think it might have been that it overshot the runway,” he told host Seth Meyers. “Maybe it was a training exercise or something?” 

It’s not the only inflight incident that has shaken Egerton, either. The Rocketman star also recalled having nightmares after being separated from his mom on a flight as a child. Looking back at the experience, he added, “I screamed and screamed and screamed and that’s all I remember.” 

Directed by Black Adam and Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra, Carry-On follows TSA agent Ethan (Egerton) as he is blackmailed by an unknown individual (Jason Bateman) into letting a suspicious package pass through his scanners and onto a flight, threatening the lives of those in the air and on the ground. Oh, and to make matters even worse, it also happens to be Christmas Eve.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Egerton described his character as “a hero in waiting” who quickly rises to the momentous and dangerous occasion in order to protect others, including his girlfriend (Sofia Carson). 

“He’s pretty noble and selfless,” he added. “He has all the qualities of an archetypal hero underneath the lack of direction.”

Carry-On touches down on Netflix on Friday, Dec. 13. Watch Egerton discuss his airline travel terrors in the clip above.