Emma Thompson Likens Her Underwear In Cruella To A "Ship's Rigging": "There Were People Hauling On Ropes"
Emma Thompson plays baddie Baroness von Hellman in Disney's '101 Dalmatians' live-action spin-off, 'Cruella'.
Emma Thompson has compared her underwear in Cruella to a "ship's rigging".
The 62-year-old actress plays fashion designer Baroness von Hellman in the new flick — an origin story for the iconic 101 Dalmatians villain Cruella de Vil — and struggled to cope with her extravagant undergarments.
Speaking to The Sun, Thompson said: "My underwear was like a sort of ship's rigging. I mean, there were people hauling on ropes.
"It was a lot. So peeing was hard and involved a team of people."
The Nanny McPhee star added that her dressing room routine was far more difficult than co-star Emma Stone, who portrays the title character.
She added: "The underwear was a big old deal. Not for la Stone, obviously, because she's slender as a lily and didn't need to wear a corset-like a frigging whalebone aria."
Baroness von Hellman is a terrifying fashion designer in the movie and Thompson relished the opportunity to play a "proper villain" and drew on her own life experiences for the character.
The Oscar winner — who is married to actor Greg Wise — said: "I drew on life, obviously.
"I mean, I think if my husband were in the room, he'd say, 'And no acting required, really.'
"I had such fun doing her because I think I'd been asking for quite a number of years if I could be a villain, a proper villain. I've spent decades playing what my mother used to call 'good women in frocks'. And now I got to play a really evil woman in frocks."
Cruella is set in 1970s London and it sparked memories of Thompsn's teenage years, even featuring the same double-decker bus she used to catch.
She explained: "It was the same bus, the 159, and it was this little hop-on, hop-off bus.
"It was just like being little again and being a teenager going into London to maybe buy myself a top, which would have perhaps cost 50p or something, because we'd only just gone decimal."
Cruella opens in cinemas on Thursday (May 27) and is also available on Disney+'s Premier Access from May 28 for S$38.98. — BANG SHOWBIZ
Photo: Disney