Hollywood Heroes: 13 Brave Stars Who Stepped Up to Save Lives

A screening of his 2001 film Thirteen Conversations About One Thing gave the actor the chance to show off his quick thinking. When a woman began suffering a seizure, Matthew McConaughey revived her with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. After witnessing his lifesaving work, costar Amy Irving called McConaughey a "hero."

Country singer Blake Shelton once risked his life to rescue four men who had fallen into a dangerous mud hole and were getting sucked inside!

While out for a drive, the star came across the group. They'd already been stranded near the Oklahoma River for two hours and were tiring. Shelton first tried to pull them out of the mud hole by himself; when that wouldn't work, he raced back and got on his tractor to pull the men free.

Said one of them, "Yeah, I would say he is a hero."

The muscled-up Fast & Furious star was riding his motorcycle in Hollywood when he saw a car crash in front of him. In a flash, Vin Diesel pulled over, jumped off his bike and ran to the scene, where he helped extricate the parents and young children from the burning vehicle — getting everyone to safety right before it exploded into a fireball!

Top Gun star Tom Cruise has a reputation for stepping up when there's work to be done, and his quick reflexes saved Elisabeth Shue, his costar in the 1988 flick Cocktail, from getting decapitated!

The scary scene unfolded when Shue began running toward the back of a helicopter, not realizing the rotor blade was spinning. Cruise glanced over and saw the horror about to unfold and took off, lunging after her! He dove at her feet and was able to grab her legs, tackling her to the ground.

Said a camera operator, "At that point, she turned white, and he pulled her back towards the front of the helicopter, and they walked away. All of us in the helicopter were quite shaken up over the close call, but there was nothing to be said. Tom had, in that instant, truly saved her life."

Kate Winslet was visiting on pal Richard Branson's private island when the British tycoon's house caught fire with 20 people inside!

The Oscar winner swung into action when she turned and saw his then 90-year-old mother, Eve, in a panic. Acting fast, Winslet picked her up and carried her outside.

"No, I didn't save her life," the modest star insisted. "I carried her down the stairs, which is the truth of it."

Halle Berry, who played Bond girl Jinx Johnson in 2002's Die Another Day, recently revealed that 007 star Pierce Brosnan channeled a real-life James Bond moment when he saved her from choking while they were filming a scene together.

"I was supposed to be all s--- and seduce him with a fig," said Berry. "And then he had to get up and do the Heimlich. So not s--- … You should have seen it, though — James Bond knows how to Heimlich!"

NCIS boss Mark Harmon, who relied on his gut instincts as Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs on the popular CBS drama, said his own gut instinct pushed him into action when a car crashed and burst into flames outside his home in 1996.

Seeing a boy trapped inside, the father-of-two smashed the window with a sledgehammer and pulled him to safety. But he said, "I won't take credit for it because if the car explodes and I'm there next to the car, then you're talking about two young boys who don't have a father!"

Longtime friends Meryl Streep and Cher were walking in New York City looking for a place with some good ice cream, when they suddenly walked into an in-progress assault on a woman — and risked their lives to save her!

"We walk down the street and we hear screaming," said Cher. "We come around the corner and this gigantic man is ripping the clothes off of this girl. And Meryl starts screaming, and I start screaming, and we run towards this gigantic man and he turns and starts running towards us. Just out of, I don't know, we split, and he ran through us … and the thug ran away. It was a miracle! We went up to the girl and all of her clothes were torn and she was clutching her bag. So we're putting her together and trying to get her to look a little bit like she hasn't just been ravished, and she looks at us, and she goes, ‘Oh, my God, I've been saved by Meryl Streep and Cher!'"

A Quiet Place actor John Krasinski spent six months in Costa Rica after he graduated high school, and while he was there, he braved a dangerous riptide to save a girl from drowning!

"One of the places I went was this amazing beach called Manuel Antonio that I didn't realize had an insane riptide," he revealed. "While I was swimming there, this Costa Rican girl and an American guy were swimming right next to me, and we were knee-deep. I went underwater for a second, and when I came back up he was screaming at the top of his lungs. Literally, in three seconds the girl had been swept 150 yards out."

Fortunately, Krasinski's mother was a lifeguard and had taught him to swim from a very early age.

"In that moment, I didn't ask anyone. There was no one to help me. I just went out and tried to save her," said Krasinski. And he did. The incident proved to be life altering for him.

He added, "I grew up after that."

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Danny DeVito said he was visiting his pal Michael Douglas on the set of Romancing the Stone in Mexico back in the 1980s when he had to save his best friend from certain death!

"There was this guy who had a truck with a cage on it and inside the pickup truck, in the bed of the truck, were snakes," said DeVito. "But Michael, he's being the hot shot, Mikey D. And the guy's got a snake on his arm and all the kids are coming around. And Michael grabs the snake. I'm going, ‘Michael, don't touch the snake! That's a snake, man. That snake could bite you, man.' And it did — right on the hand. I always heard the best thing to do is suck the poison out, right away, so I did! I grabbed his hand and I'm spitting all over the place, and I say, ‘Boy, it's a good thing this didn't bite you on the balls — you would be a dead man.'"

The screen bad boy is really a great guy! Danny Trejo happened to be in the area when two cars collided on a Los Angeles highway in the summer of 2019.

In a TV interview, Trejo — a Los Angeles native — explained, "A lady ran a red light and crashed into that Explorer and flipped it over — there was a baby inside and a grandma."

Acting fast, the Machete star managed to crawl into the totaled car, which was dangerously teetering sideways, but said he was unable to reach the child's car seat. That's when a bystander, whom Trejo described as a "young woman," stepped in and undid the buckle, and together they pulled the baby from the vehicle.

While the actor is being praised for his heroism, he modestly shrugged it off, saying, "The only thing that saved that little kid was his car seat, honest to God."

The country singer has a hit song called "Standing Outside the Fire," but brave Garth Brooks actually raced into the flames of a raging 600-acre Oklahoma wildfire to save two boys and a neighboring family from the oncoming blaze, ferrying them to safety in his pickup truck.

One of his evacuees reportedly told the 14- and ten-year-old brothers afterward, "You just got saved by Garth Brooks."