Matthew Modine’s scary Chicago event wasn’t quite ‘shark scary’

LOS ANGELES — Some of Matthew Modine’s many films have included “some darn scary scenes,” as in his shark thriller “47 Meters Down” (opening Friday). Yet Modine admitted “one of the most frightening things that ever happened to me — even if not shark scary — happened in Chicago.”

The environmentally conscious actor recalled an evening when he decided to ride his bicycle to a dinner party on the Gold Coast. “I almost got killed! It was the stupidest thing I ever did,” admitted Modine. “I didn’t realize that I was suddenly pedaling up what looked like the on-ramp to a freeway! It turned out to be the Outer Drive — Lake Shore Drive. There was no getting off of it. It was terrifying. The road was very wet because it was raining — very hard. It’s a miracle I didn’t get killed.”

This took place back in 2004, when Modine starred in Arthur Miller’s “Finishing the Picture” at the Goodman Theatre with Harris Yulin, Frances Fisher, Stacy Keach, Linda Lavin, Scott Glenn and Heather Prete. The dinner party for the cast was hosted by Fisher’s cousin, Chicagoan Catherine Hamilton.

As for “47 Meters Down,” Modine admitted his role as the American expat who provides shark cage thrills for tourists in Mexico “was a piece of cake compared to riding on Lake Shore Drive on a bike!” While his co-stars — Mandy Moore and Claire Holt — are the ones who plunge to the bottom of the sea when the cage’s cable snaps, “I really only got to watch all that, and mostly am heard [talking to the women on their underwater radio], rather than seen in the film.”