Bryce Dallas Howard Reveals She’s Still ‘Very Cautious’ After ‘Spider-Man 3’ Injury

Bryce Dallas Howard’s role as Gwen Stacy left an unfortunate mark.

Howard, 44, attended L.A. Comic Con at the  Los Angeles Convention Center in Dowtown Los Angeles on Saturday, Sept. 27, where she reflected on her experience in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 during a panel. Howard played Gwen Stacy, the lab partner of Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker. In the comics, Gwen is Peter’s first love, but in the Sam Raimi-directed movie, Peter uses her to try to make Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson jealous.

Howard said she has “so many good memories” of making the movie. “I remember being a part of Spider-Man 3 and thinking to myself, ‘Wow, it’s so cool how the crew and the actors have become almost like a company, like a band, like a little circus, where they know what their show is and they come together and each time they want to dazzle the audiences more,’ ” she said. She praised Raimi as “unbelievably collaborative and inclusive.” 

“Their collective focus on creating something that delivered for audiences really inspired me,” she said of the cast and crew. “And just at that point I was like, ‘I’m just going to make it my mission to try to be in movie one of a franchise.’ ” Other franchises she’s ended up joining in her career so far include Jurassic Park, Twilight and Star Wars (which she worked on as a director).

The moderator then asked Howard about doing some of her own stunts in the movie. “As an actor, you want to be able to do as much as you can, but you work very closely with the stunt choreographers and coordinators and performers to be able to perform, and then they know the point at which they need to take over,” she said. “Got a lot of great training and I was very enthusiastic and I still feel some of those stunts from time to time of getting caught by Spider-Man.” 

She said getting “caught” can “pull your arm out a little bit,” grabbing her left shoulder for emphasis.

After the panel, Howard opened up to PEOPLE about the injury to her shoulder. “I remember I went to my osteopath afterwards and he was like, ‘Were you dragged by a truck?’ I was like, ‘No. I was rescued by Spider-Man, of course.’”

“I’m a safety fanatic. And while I love to be really active, I am very cautious,” she said, adding that “thankfully” she doesn’t have “a ton” of aches and pains from stunts. “But for sure, there’s some things.”

In July 2020, Howard showed off some of the bruises she got while filming Jurassic World: Dominion. “Raise your hands if you’re happy to be doing stunts again!!” she wrote on social media at the time, alongside photos of large bruises on the underside of both arms.

Back in 2022, Howard told PEOPLE she will “always be game” to return to her role as Gwen as the Marvel Cinematic Universe explores multiverses. She added, “With Gwen Stacy, Emma Stone, in my perspective as a fan, is the definitive Gwen Stacy in that universe.” Stone played Gwen in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, alongside Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. Hailee Steinfeld also voices Gwen Stacy in the animated Spider-Verse films.