As someone who's cutthroat enough to kill members of her own family, Ozark’s Ruth Langmore is anything but squeamish. But the same can’t be said for Julia Garner, who plays the sneering junior money launderer on the show. She and the rest of the cast learned that the hard way while shooting a pivotal scene for Ozark Season 1.

In the scene, Ruth electrocutes a mouse in order to test a death trap she’s set for then-target Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman). There’s only one problem: Garner has a major rodent phobia. Like, major. "Even thinking about it makes me cringe," she told Vulture while recalling the scene in 2018. "I couldn't breathe... it was terrible.”

Because her fear of mice was so intense, the other people on set had to use a double to complete the scene — which means that the hand we saw picking up the mouse for Ruth’s cruel experiment was, in fact, not Garner’s. Naturally, castmates subjected her to a lengthy roast session after the shoot was over. "Everybody was laughing at me that day. I would get pictures of [a] mouse for the next month," she remembered.

While Garner wasn’t able to conquer her fear of rodents, her character Ruth manages to complete the experiment before executing her plan. (Her initial target was Marty, but she ends up using the trap on her uncles Russ, who'd become an FBI informant, and Boyd after they'd decided to try and rob and kill Marty). Ruth’s move is as icy as it is calculated. Admittedly, it’s also downright fearless — something that Garner herself, mercifully, didn’t have to be. 

9 Shows Like ‘Ozark’ to Watch Next