Emma Stone reveals how Dirty Dancing lift recreation caused 'full meltdown'

La La Land star Emma Stone has spoken about the drama behind her famous "Dirty Dancing lift" in her hit film Crazy Stupid Love.

The actress and her co-star Ryan Gosling recreated the scene in which Patrick Swayze lifts Jennifer Grey over his head in the 1987 film for the modern romantic comedy, but it came close to ending in disaster.

Stone, who has re-teamed with Gosling for the Oscar-tipped musical La La Land, told The Graham Norton Show: "The Dirty Dancing lift didn't go to plan. When I was seven years old, I broke both my arms because my gym teacher let go of my ankles when I was on parallel bars and I fell six feet to the ground.

"When we did the film, I knew Ryan was going to lift me up, but what I didn't know was that I had an internalised phobia about being lifted six feet in the air and it all went horribly wrong.

"I went into full meltdown, I had to lie down and watch Labyrinth while crying!"

Gosling said: "I've never had this experience, but I can only imagine if a possum fell out of a tree, landed on my head and tried to scratch my eyes out it would be something similar!"

The actor, who recently scored a Golden Globe for La La Land, said the duo also came close to a disaster when they were filming their most recent project and went to meet Gene Kelly's widow Patricia Ward Kelly with director Damien Chazelle.

He told the show: "We went to meet her, which was wonderful and she shared a lot of his stories.

"But, after this magical night, we managed to let her little dog out on to the street. We were running in and out of traffic trying to catch it and there was a moment when Damien looked and me and said 'We will not kill Gene Kelly's widow's dog!'"

The Graham Norton Show is on BBC One tonight at 10.35pm.