Wooden heels, not the corset!
Florence Pugh’s verdict on the worst part of dressing in 18th century clothes?
DESPITE squeezing into a tight corset for her new role in Netflix’s The Wonder, actor Florence Pugh said the least favourite part of her wardrobe during her Irish film shoot was her uncomfortable wooden heels.
Emma Donoghue, the author of the book the film is based on, said the Black Widow star strongly disliked the footwear she had to wear while filming in rural Co. Wicklow.
‘I got to be an extra and I said to Florence, “Oh the corset is brutal,” and she said, “No it’s the heels! The little wooden heels are the worst!” I assumed they were the comfortable modern equivalent, but no! The little wooden heels are exactly how they were then for total authenticity,’ Ms Donoghue told DMG Media website Geek Ireland.
She said Pugh agreed to do the film because it helped her escape being ‘trapped’ by her own beauty.
‘I think what someone like Florence is looking for is a really interesting role.
‘Sometimes actors like her can be a bit trapped by their own beauty, you know, so if you give them something very meaty they’re like, “yes”. She was just so cheerful and hardworking and she advised me to always have a mint humbug tucked up my sleeve.’
In an interview this week, Pugh said wearing a corset ‘changes your ability to do anything’.
‘Even just walking over that landscape was exhausting because of all the material I was carrying with me. It affects everything,’ she said.
Pugh said the blue dress her character Lib wears at the start of the film shows she is an outsider.
‘But by the end of the film, the mud is up to my knees and that was mud from the actual shoot itself.’
Pugh compared the experience to filming Lady Macbeth in 2016, ‘when I
could be naked at whatever size I was, and barefaced, and the acting could speak for itself. There’s nothing for people to be distracted by. They can’t be like, “Oh, I don’t like the makeup.” It was a wonderful reminder: “Oh yeah: this is who you are.”’
Meanwhile, Irish actress Niamh Algar, who plays narrator Kitty in The Wonder, said putting on the corset for her role helped her get into the right mindset.
‘I mean, the minute you put on that corset, it brings you into the world straight away, because you can’t breathe.
‘They built that cottage in the middle of the Wicklow mountains and so it’s like being on set and then having that 360 environment all around you that you can just get lost in,’ the Westmeath actor said.
Speaking about her famous costar, Algar told how Pugh could switch in and out of her onscreen roles ‘just like that’.
‘She’s just a powerhouse,’ Ms Algar said.
‘You work with her on set she’s like telling you jokes or having a chat and then the cameras will roll and she’s straight into it, just like that, but then she switches it off again afterwards straight away.’
‘That corset it brings you into the world right away’
The Wonder will be shown in select cinemas from November 4 and it available to view on Netflix from Novem