Nina Dobrev Set On Fire In New Movie

Talk about a hot performance. 

The Vampire Dairies alum Nina Dobrev was set on fire for her upcoming film Flatliners. 

A remake of Joel Schumaker's cult classic, Flatliners follows five medical students who are obsessed by what lies beyond the realms of human life. Driven to action by their curiosity, the group embarks on a daring and dangerous mission: They stop their hearts for short periods of time, each of which triggers a near-death experience, allowing the students a firsthand look into the afterlife. 

Needless to say, Dobrev's character, Marlo, is pushed to her limits in the film. From falls to bumps to resuscitation efforts, her character faces it all. But perhaps the most striking of Dobrev's stunt is one that may not even make it to the final version of the film: a massive burn that engulfs over half of her character's body. And though the forthcoming refresh is far and away more advanced in terms of technology than was the original Flatliners, Dobrev has revealed that the flames weren't entirely the work of CGI. Dobrev was actually set alight for that scene. 

So how did it all happen? Dobrev explained to Entertainment Weekly, "Well, first of all, your wardrobe gets fireproofed, which is a certain chemical that can't really burn. They dip your clothes in it and let that dry. And then they put this jelly stuff all over your skin and underneath. They put gas on your arm—well, they did on my arm—and then they come at me with a blowtorch, right before they call 'action.'"

Things get wild once the cameras start officially rolling. They call 'action,' they light my arm on fire, I have to act like I'm on fire—which I am—and react to the scariness of it, which wasn't too hard," Dobrev said with a laugh. "And then, after a few seconds, as it moves up my arm, they call cut, and they run in with fire extinguishers. So it goes from hot to cold very, very quickly."

Dobrev mentioned that she shot the scene "five or six times at least" to ensure that the film's creatives "[got] it from different angles." 

Despite how it may seem on the surface, the stunt was heavily supervised. In fact, the entire cast took part in weeks of training at the hands of medical consultant Lindsay Somers in order for them to gain a better understanding of how the human body reacts to certain procedures and in various scenarios. Somers also aided the cast in how to accurately portray medical stunts. 

Dobrev spoke of one example: resuscitation. "When you get shocked by the paddles, you have to lift your chest, but the rest of your body has to stay limp, so it was pretty tricky to stay as still as possible, and breathe as little as possible, keep your eyes open, and still have a limp body whilst your chest moves," she explained. "You have a tube in your mouth, you're hooked up to an IV, and somebody is performing CPR on you—the chest compressions. And we [were] faking them, but you still have to put a lot of energy into when you're faking it. So I remember leaving set and my whole chest was bruised underneath my bra, from the chest compressions. And the hours [were] so long, and you're doing it for so long, but it's still really, really fun. Definitely a full-body workout."

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Flatliners stars Ellen Page as Courtney, Kiersey Clemons as Sophia, James Norton as Jamie, Kiefer Sutherland as Nelson, Beau Mirchoff as Brad, Steve Byers as Sam, Tyler Hynes as Lane, Daniela Barbosa as Haley, Madison Brydges as Tessa, Jenny Raven as Irina Wong, and Charlotte McKinney as an unnamed nurse. 

Flatliners is set to hit theaters on September 29. Until then, find out everything about the remakes and reboots you didn't know were begin made.