'Jane Eyre's' agony over 15 inch corset

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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When unknown actress Ruth Wilson was chosen for the role of Jane Eyre, she no doubt prepared herself to play a tortured soul.

What she probably didn't expect however, was to endure 13 weeks of torture herself. But the 24-year-old actress - the leading lady in the BBC1 adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's famous novel - found herself in agony after being forced to wear a tiny 15-inch waist corset.

Suffering with rashes and skin burn, the drama school graduate had to be issued with a new corset every two weeks.

'Poor Ruth was in constant pain,' said a BBC insider. 'She is naturally a very slender size 10 but the 15-inch corset that wardrobe gave her was simply minuscule and utterly restrictive.

'Three people had to ease her into it every day and she had to breathe in, sucking her stomach in, while someone tied the corset up from behind.

'She could barley move in it, let alone eat or exercise, so Ruth spent the majority of her days on set in absolute agony.

'Several corsets were used during filming to try and relieve her pain but due to reasons of continuity, they all had to be the same, ridiculously small, size.

'She had red marks and painful-looking indents on her ribs and tummy from where the corset had been holding her in all day.

'But Ruth was a real professional - a complete trooper - and didn't once complain.'

Miss Wilson, who stars as the orphan governess in the four-part serial, spent 13 weeks on set, filming at Derbyshire's Haddon Hall.

As downtrodden Jane, she spends much of her time wearing unflattering cotton smocks, plain, high-neck dresses and full-length diaphanous skirts.

But beneath each costume she was made to wear a restrictive whalebone corset, tailored to give her a traditional Victorian hourglass figure.

Her co-star Toby Stephens, who plays the morose Mr Rochester, had no such wardrobe difficulties. Only a chin-length brown wig may have induced even the slightest discomfort.

The fifteen inch corset reduced Miss Wilson's natural waist size by eleven inches - making her a US size zero - and giving her an even smaller waist than the one Kylie Minogue famously flaunted during her Showgirl tour last year.

Then, Miss Minogue sparked public hysteria when it was revealed that she was squeezing her petite frame into a John Galliano-designed sixteen-inch corset.

There were fears that such restriction would affect the Australian star's voice and force her to mime.

The part of Jane Eyre is undoubtedly Miss Wilson's biggest role to date.

She was cast as the leading lady last year, within weeks of graduating from Lamda - the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Previously she had just one professional credit to her name, as Jewel Diamond in the little-known channel Five sitcom, Suburban Shootout.

But for this eagerly anticipated series - the seventh major TV adaptation since the 1943 original starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles - Miss Wilson will be lining up with a stellar cast including Francesca Annis, Pam Ferris and Tara Fitzgerald.

The series, which started last night, is based on Charlotte Bronte's semi-autobiographical 1847 novel.

The hugely popular tome - it was recently voted one of two most life-changing books, second only to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, is an account of an orphaned girl brought up by her cruel relatives.

After finding work as a governess at a charity school, she falls in love, and eventually marries, her employer, Mr Rochester.

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