The Mudfight in Hoffman's Midsummer Night's Dream


Liane Bonin reports on the mudfight in Michael Hoffman's film of A Midsummer Night's Dream:

[T]he greatest misery was left to [Calista] Flockhart and costar Anna Friel. The two were set to engage in an elaborate mud fight, but no one had checked to see if the grittiness of the mud was costume-friendly. ''It got inside their corsets, so every time they moved, it was like sandpaper taking their skin off,'' says Hoffman. Worst of all, the women had to repeat the scene, which meant a four-hour process of cleaning up before getting tossed into the skin-searing mud pool for a second time. ''They had to be dragged to the mud pit, it was so miserable,'' says Hoffman. ''The last 45 minutes of those four hours was spent just coaxing them into it.''

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