Elizabeth Banks nearly kicked the bucket while making her new movie, “Skincare.”
“I had my first ever choking incident,” the actress, 50, revealed on “Good Morning America” Tuesday, explaining the “scary” ordeal occurred while she was “alone” in her trailer while on a break from filming.
Banks had been enjoying a meal for lunch when a “little green pea” got lodged in her throat.
“I threw the door open — couldn’t make any noise, was so afraid,” the “Pitch Perfect” star said before admitting, “It was terrifying.”
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Fortunately, a crew member then approached her and asked, “‘Are you choking?'” When she confirmed “yes,” he proceeded to “very calmly” give her the Heimlich maneuver.
The first aid technique consists of an individual applying pressure against the abdomen of the person choking to force out the object blocking the airways.
“He had to do it twice,” Banks said. “His name is Julius. He is my guardian angel. Julius, I love you.”
The “Charlie’s Angel” star added that Julius, whose last name she did not disclose, “saved [her] life” and so she wanted to use her platform to encourage people to learn how to do the Heimlich maneuver.
“Make sure you know how to do it,” she insisted. “Talk to your friends and family about it.”
Banks said there are many misconceptions about the method, including how some people are “worried” about cracking the person’s rib while doing it.
“They’re dying, so crack a rib if you have to,” the “Hunger Games: Mockingbird” actress said. “I would’ve been fine with a cracked rib. I literally couldn’t breathe, and it was super scary.”
The Heimlich maneuver has proven successful for many people, including “Real Housewives of Orange County” alum Vicki Gunvalson, who talked about when pal Tamra Judge used the technique on her.
“We laugh about it now, but I was, like, ‘You saved my life,’ and she goes, ‘You dumb cluck,’” the reality star, 62, exclusively told us in 2022.
However, when Mike Sorrentino’s young son recently suffered a choking incident, the “Jersey Shore” star and his wife, Lauren Sorrentino, turned to an alternate method.
The MTV star, 42, informed his followers via Instagram that they used “the @dechoker
