Waiting to exhale! Frances Fisher opened up about the constricting costumes she wore while filming 1997’s Titanic.
For most of the film, Fisher, 70, Kate Winslet and other stars were dressed in corsets as the project was set in 1912 — a time where women wore the garment everyday under clothing.
“Having the corset on completely changes your breathing style and posture,” Fisher told Vulture in an interview published on Monday, December 19. “Nobody could breathe correctly. There were not a lot of places where you could rest.”
She continued: “Sitting down was difficult.”
The U.K. native, who portrayed Ruth Dewitt Bukater — the mother of Winslet’s Rose — said the waist-cinching piece was so tight that it would “dig into your body and you couldn’t lean back.” While the cast was supplied with “resting boards,” their hairstyles and accessories were so “big” that no one “could use them.” (The women donned curly updos that were accessorized with wide-brimmed hats.)
Fisher explained to Vulture: “The proportions were incorrect. So, we did a lot of standing around.” The women would only experience a break in between takes. “Kathy [Bates], Kate and I would say, ‘Okay, are you guys ready to go back to the dressing room and relieve ourselves?'”
The cast also struggled to use the bathroom. “They had porta-potties on set, and there was no way any of us could get into a porta-potty with those big dresses on. So, we would stand in the back of a flatbed truck, and they would drive us back to the dressing rooms, so we could take care of what we needed to take care of,” the Awake star added.
Titanic, which marked its 25th anniversary on Monday, tells the story of a luxury British steamship, the RMS Titanic, that sank on April 15, 1912. The movie, which made 2.2 billion at the box office, also centers around the romance of Winslet’s Rose and Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Jack.
In addition to the film’s eye-catching costumes, the Titanic has become a highly discussed cultural phenomenon with many fans debating if Jack and Rose could both fit on the floating door that saved Rose’s life. (After the ship descended, Rose propped herself onto the barrier as Jack held her hand from the water. By the time help arrived, Jack froze to death.)
Director James Cameron put an end to the discourse in an interview published by the Toronto Sun on Friday, December 16. He explained that he conducted scientific research that would give viewers answers.
“We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate and Leo and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods and the answer was, there was no way they both could have survived. Only one could survive,” Cameron shared.
