10 Hollywood actresses on the torment of wearing a corset
The perils of period dramas...
Hollywood stars often suffer for their art - particularly when it comes to the gruelling costumes they often have to wear to recreate historical dramas. Namely, the corset.
Although the constraints of a corset can reflect the limitations of women's rights during those periods, it can also have serious physical effects on those wearing it.
Here are 10 actresses speaking out about the physical and emotional torment of wearing the restrictive garment below...
Keira Knightley
Knightley is synonymous with sumptuous period dramas, but the star says wearing an obligatory corset is "positively awful".
"It's not really a surprise we were known as the weaker sex, because you literally cannot get a breath," the star told Today. "So it's sort of, as soon as you start getting emotional, if you're doing an emotional scene, you can't calm down.
"You can't literally draw a breath to try and centre yourself again. It's no wonder they were sort of fainting all over the place."
Daktoa Fanning
The actress may have looked exquisite in the leg o'mutton sleeved gowns reflective of New York's 1896 gilded high-society in Netflix's The Alienist, but the style came at cost for Fanning.
"I actually fainted during my first fitting which gives you some indication [of what it was like to wear a corset]," the star told Digital Spy.
Fanning added that the corset was another restriction put in place for women of that time, which were worn to keep up a certain appearance.
"As a female, it was another thing you couldn't do for yourself," the actress continued. "You had to wear these elaborate costumes to keep up this facade of what women were supposed to be – you couldn't even take them off on your own at the end of the day."
Lily James
Despite wearing period costumes for Lady Rose in Downton Abbey, nothing could prepare James for the "torture" of wearing that corset in Disney's Cinderella.
"My corset was so tight, I could only have liquid food," the actress told The Daily Mail.
The Mamma Mia! 2 star added that wearing the famous blue gown in the film was "torture".
Emma Stone
The Oscar-winning actress recently revealed the explicit horrors of wearing a corset for upcoming period drama The Favourite.
"Women existed like that for such a long time, which gives you a lot of sympathy for that time period and what they were going through," the Maniac star explained on The Graham Norton Show.
"For the first month, I couldn't breathe, and I would smell menthol and it would make me think I was in a wide-open space and could breathe for a moment in time. After a month, all my organs shifted—it was gross, and if you don't have to, don't do it!"
Nicole Kidman
The actress shocked fans of the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge! by revealing she broke a rib trying to get into her burlesque-dancer corset.
"I re-broke my rib getting into it," the star told Graham Norton.
"I had this thing that I wanted to get my waist down to 18 inches, which Vivian Leigh had on Gone with the Wind and I was just like, 'tighter, tighter'."
Jenna Coleman
The 32-year-old actress may have worn a corset for two series of royal drama Victoria, it clearly doesn't get any easier to bear.
Despite the discomfort though, Coleman said she likes what a corset does to her body, and the feeling of being constrained helps her get into the mindset of the monarch of that restrictive period.
"It's incredible psychologically to be restrained in that way and [to feel] what it does to you if you have emotional scenes or you want to walk quickly but you have something that's constantly shortening your breath," The Cry star told OK!.
Natalie Dormer
The Game of Thrones star had a self-imposed corset ban after starring in period dramas Tudors and The Scandalous Lady W. But the allure of BBC two drama Picnic at Hanging Rock earlier this year got her back into one again.
"I had sworn that I wasn't going to get back into a corset for a while because I was fed up," the actress previously told Radio Times.
Dormer said it was particularly tough this time around, because they shot the atmospheric series in the summer heat of Melbourne.
"My favourite things are their coffee, red wine and smashed avocado, and you get great Asian food. I had to say, 'Pull the corset in more' – Melbourne is a good city for eating," she added to the publication.
"You have to sweat it out and hydrate. Don't be anywhere near me when I take my corset off.’"
Emma Watson
The actress and women's right advocate refused to wear a corset in Disney's Beauty and the Beast because she wanted Belle to reflect a modern-day woman.
Watson also wanted her contemporary princess to have agency and be in control of her actions, rather than being reduced to a "corseted, impossible idea of female beauty."
Designers removed the corset from her iconic yellow dress and replaced it with a flexible bodice.
"Nothing she wears is inhibiting," designer Jacqueline Durran told WWD. "She can do whatever she would want to do in any of her costumes. She rides a horse."
Heida Reed
The Poldark star revealed she named her former corset "Cruella" due to the pain it inflicted upon her.
The 30-year-old actress shared a black and white image of herself wearing it on set on Instagram, and added the caption: "Who wants to eat too much food for two weeks & then put Cruella the corset on? She's back. And she's mean."
Reed later told Radio Times: "[The corsets] are so tight I can only eat soup and smoothies."
Jessica Brown Findlay
The Downton Abbey star said wearing a corset to play the much-loved Lady Cybil in the period drama almost put her off starring in historical series for life.
"I hate corsets," she told The Telegraph. "I absolutely hate them. Ugh. I don’t think I’ll ever wear a corset again."
However, the actress later relented when she joined the 2017 cast of costume drama Harlots alongside Lesley Manville and Samantha Morton.
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