Elizabeth Olsen says she asked for a stunt double to film 'Love & Death' ax murder scene: 'It felt kind of scary at times'

• Elizabeth Olsen said she "tapped out" of filming an ax murder scene in HBO Max's "Love & Death."
• Olsen told The Hollywood Reporter that shooting the bloody moment was "scary at times."

Elizabeth Olsen said that filming the "Love & Death" ax murder scene was so "scary" that she asked a stunt double to take over instead.

Olsen stars in the latest TV biopic about Candy Montgomery, a Texan housewife who was accused of murdering her friend Betty Gore in 1980 by striking her with an ax 41 times.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Olsen said that recreating the murder scene, with her costar Lily Rabe playing Gore, was "awful."

"Lily was six months pregnant. It was awful. She had a double. And they also could erase [her belly] in post. But she was in a little shirt with a six-month belly," the 34-year-old actor said.

"It was crazy. And she really wanted to do everything. Lily is a really physically strong human being, and so it was like real tension, physically, and there was an element where I felt safe because we had choreography, but there was an element where I didn't want to do everything. So it was a lot of things."

Olsen went on to say she "tapped out" when it came to using the ax because she felt uncomfortable.

"My experience with more fight sequences isn't hand-to-hand fighting. And so it felt kind of scary at times," the Marvel star said

"And then there were moments where Lily asked me to, with the rubber ax, make contact with her body. And I tapped out and was like, 'You're going to have to do this with my stunt double.'"

"Love & Death," which is available to stream on HBO Max, is the third project to be based on the Montgomery case.

The first was a 1990 TV movie, "A Killing in a Small Town," which gave fake names to the people involved.

Last year, Hulu premiered its own TV series about the true story starring Jessica Biel and Melanie Lynskey.