Actor Channing Tatum took method acting to an uncomfortable new level on the set of The Eagle.

His character, Marcus Aquila, is seen to be walking with a limp after suffering several grisly leg wounds.

However, there was a rather more wince-inducing reason for Tatum’s stiff-legged gait, caused by having scalding water tipped down his nether regions.

The accident happened when an assistant tried to help him warm up, after he had spent hours shooting a scene in freezing rain in Scotland, by pouring warm water down the front of the wetsuit underneath his costume.

Unfortunately it was fresh from the kettle.

At first nobody believed that Tatum’s screams of pain were real.

His co-star Jamie Bell said: “He is a big practical joker. People saw him writhing around screaming and everybody just went ‘Oh Channing!’ Meanwhile he’s having a horrific experience, throwing himself in the cold water and the rocky river bed trying to ease his discomfort.”

The 29-year-old star was rushed off to hospital in a Land Rover.

However, the driver had the radio on which was playing, with rather cruel irony, the Kings of Leon song Sex On Fire.

“My driver was a really funny Scot,” said Tatum.

‘‘He said ‘Maybe this isn’t appropriate’ and turned it down.

“It got a giggle out of me and then I went right back to panicking.”

If he was expecting sympathy from his wife, actress Jenna Dewan, Tatum was initially disappointed.

“I got someone else to tell her and she actually thought they were kidding as well.”

Thankfully he was sufficiently recovered from his injuries to go back to work after just one day off.

“We were getting close to the end of the movie and everybody was tired so I just wrapped it up and got back out there.

“It helped that I was supposed to have a limp anyway.”