Elle Fanning says her body ‘creepily shifts’ as she adjusts to wearing corsets
Elle Fanning has detailed how her body has “creepily formed and shifted” so that she is now more comfortable wearing corsets while filming The Great.
The 25-year-old, who plays Catherine the Great in the popular Hulu period series, said she has “got used to” wearing the restrictive garments.
Fanning is currently starring in the third season of the satirical show alongside Nicholas Hoult, who plays Peter III of Russia, and Gillian Anderson, who plays her mother, Joanna Elisabeth.
In a new interview with Insider, she was asked whether wearing corsets gets any easier as many of her costumes involve them.
“It actually does, I will say. It does get more bearable,” she told the publication. “I have got used to them now.”
Fanning added that at the start of filming for each season, she has to readjust to wearing the elaborate, confining undergarments that are designed to cinch the waist.
“And then your body creepily forms and shifts and it becomes easier,” she continued. “Sometimes, yeah, they’re not the most comfortable.”
Nevertheless, the Maleficent star has adapted to wearing corsets so well that she can “do anything in a corset”, she said.
The elaborate outfits, hair and makeup showcased in The Great won the series an Emmy for outstanding period costumes in 2022.
Costume designer Sharon Long previously detailed the fashion choices for Fanning’s character, which often exaggerate her figure.
Speaking to IndieWire last year, Long said: “The size of [Catherine’s] skirt was an interesting device to use. We kept her as tiny and tight at the top as possible and her skirts as large as we could go, and she moves through the set and takes up space.”
Fanning recently spoke out about the negative feedback she once received after she was rejected from a big franchise film.
“I didn’t get a part once for something big because – it might not have just been this reason, but this was the feedback that I heard – was because I didn’t have enough Instagram followers at the time,” she told Josh Horowitz on his podcast Happy Sad Confused.
“That’s something I firmly don’t believe in, for not getting a part.
Fanning is the younger sister of child star Dakota Fanning. She has starred in hit films such as Super 8 and We Bought a Zoo, as well as the TV series The Girl From Plainville.
