Taron Egerton is "quite nervous" around horses and was thrown by one of the beasts on the set of 'Robin Hood'.

Taron Egerton

Taron Egerton

The 29-year-old actor had to learn to ride for his title role in 'Robin Hood' and he found it very "challenging", especially after being thrown off one of the creatures at the beginning of his lessons.

He shared with Empire magazine: "Learning to ride was probably the most challenging thing. I'm actually quite nervous of horses and they sense that. I like things that I'm perched on the top of to be reliable and solid. I was thrown off the horse in the first couple of weeks, which was pretty intense.

"But that's the joy of being an actor - having these new challenges to mount. Quite literally in this case."

Taron also endured more "challenging" preparations in the form of archery.

He said: "I trained in traditional Saracen archery with a recurve bow. You load alternating arrows on the opposite side of the bow, which allows you to hold another four in your hand at any one time, fire them, grab another four and repeat fire.

"I was taught by a Danish guy, Lars Anderson - he's quite a stern taskmaster.

"We spent quite a few hours together. It was very challenging."

Taron had a slightly easier time with the fight scenes, thanks to his role in spy franchise 'Kingsman', but he still got accidentally hit on a few occasions.

He said: "There's quite a lot of hand-to-hand combat in the film.

"It's something I've done a lot of with 'Kingsman'. It's essentially choreography, the trick is making it edgy and like it's the first time you've done it - that involves a lot of rehearsal beforehand to make sure you can do it safely and also make it look real. I've been hit in the face many times."


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