12 Actors Who Almost Choked to Death Inside Their Super Suit or Historically Accurate Petticoat
In-universe, superhero masks are supposed to obscure a person’s identity. In our world, they need to remind the audience at all times that Michelle Pfeiffer is somewhere under all that leather. That creates some kind of tension in the fabric of space-time that tends to express itself as an excruciating pain in a celebrity’s neck.
Tobey Maguire: ‘Spider-Man’
That iconic upside-down kissing scene almost waterboarded the boy — all that romantic rain was soaked up by his mask, pooled in the nose and choked him during every smooch.
Kate Winslet: ‘Titanic’
During one of their famously complex flood scenes, her coat got caught in a partially submerged gate and pinned her underwater.
Olivia Munn: ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’
Her Psylocke suit was designed with aesthetics, not practicality, in mind. It took two assistants to prep her body and shove it into the latex leotard, which then regularly ripped throughout a day of filming.
John Rhys-Davies: ‘The Lord of the Rings’
He had a horrible allergy to all that beard they had to plaster on his face. They never figured out how to make a hypoallergenic dwarf beard, so he was only able to perform once every three days. He kindly but firmly rejected an offer to appear in The Hobbit.
Patrick Stewart: ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’
Stewart says the too-small lycra suit they stuff him into constantly strained his neck and back. His personal chiropractor reportedly said, “If they don’t take you out of that costume, we are going to slap a lawsuit on Paramount for the lasting damage done to your spine.”
Peter Serafinowicz: ‘The Tick’
His super suit had some supernatural qualities: “The strange thing about the costume is that it mimics whatever temperature it is outside. So if it is cold out, I’m cold in it. If it is hot, it gets quite hot in there.” The sweat would pool inside of it, making him “pretty slimy.”
Jennifer Lawrence: ‘X-Men: First Class’
Her suit was actually an unholy amalgam of paint and glue that gave her “like weird boils, rashes and blisters.” She very nearly turned down the sequel because huffing all that gunk was messing her up: “I love these movies. It’s just the paint … fumes and toxins. I’m like, ‘I can’t even pronounce this and that’s going in my nose? I’m breathing that?’”
Simone Ashley: ‘Bridgerton’
She ralphed up a bunch of fish like a mama bird on her first day on set: “I was like, ‘Okay, first day as a leading lady, got to eat lots of food, be really energized.’ So, I had this massive portion of salmon, and that’s when I needed to be sick, basically because I was wearing the corset.”
Buddy Ebsen: ‘The Wizard of Oz’
The original Tin Man lost the part because he breathed too much of the aluminum dust they sprinkled all over him. He was rushed to the hospital during production due to shortness of breath and cramps, and had an extended stay to make sure his lungs didn’t fail.
Michelle Pfeiffer: ‘Batman Returns’
She called her Catwoman suit “the most uncomfortable costume I’ve ever been in.” The suit was vacuum sealed and required her to get powdered up just to slip inside, and “the face mask was smashing my face and choking me.” Seems like the last thing you want to do to the face of your multi-million dollar superstar.
Boris Karloff: ‘Frankenstein’
The guy behind the archetypal Frankenstein’s monster got so ill from working 19-hour days in his heavy, lead-based costume that he lost 25 pounds.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: ‘Batman & Robin’
Part of his Mr. Freeze costume was a self-contained LED light inside his mouth. His saliva would inevitably seep into the device, breaking the battery and leaking acid into his head.