star has revealed the shocking method she utilised to make herself look ‘emaciated’ in her upcoming TV show The New Look.
Maisie, 26, will star in the 10-part series for TV+, resistance fighter and sister of perfume maker Christian Dior – said to be the inspiration behind his fragrance line Miss Dior.
This drama will explore the rise to fortune of Catherine’s brother Christian and the designer Coco Chanel; played by Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche.
In playing Catherine Dior, Maisie has revealed how she fully immersed herself in the role. Harrowing scenes in the TV drama include Catherine’s interrogation by the Gestapo and concentration camp imprisonment. It also features scenes in which an emaciated Dior returns to following her incarceration.
‘It was a long job, and it was amazing; my whole life moved to Paris. It was hard work, but it was such an honour to do this part, and it became all-consuming,’ Maisie said in an interview with .
She continued: ‘This was a role that required an extraordinary amount of research and care – and it really hit me, bringing that wartime period back to the streets of Paris; like I could acknowledge the weight of it in a way that I hadn’t before.’
Maisie found scenes in which Dior is interrogated by the Gestapo to be particularly brutal, saying: ‘It was very relentless. The process of doing take after take, it really breaks down your character in a way.’
‘It’s not for everyone, but for me, I like to get lost in a role, and keep on pushing until we complete a scene,’ Maisie added.
This sense of immersion took its physical toll, with Maisie undergoing a strict regime of dieting and dehydration to portray Dior’s later ‘emaciated’ look.
‘I was eating very little, meditating all the time, burning candles and incense in my apartment,’ she revealed.
‘I had to be up at 4am to start sweating. The night before, at about 7 or 8pm I was allowed to have something salty and dehydrating – some smoked salmon and a tiny glass of wine.’
Maisie continued: ‘Then I had a boiling-hot bath with lots of salts in it. And I sort of levitated to bed and slept for maybe three hours, and woke up and had a handful of nuts. I wouldn’t be able to sleep through the night at this point. I kept waking up and feeling like a marble inside a bottle, rattling around…’
Such an ordeal led to intense nightmares after the hard days on set, which Maisie described as ‘a lot of feeling restricted, almost like sleep paralysis, dreams of being trapped and attacked, and horrible visions of men in uniform.’
However, to the star, it was important the show highlighted the uplifting side of Catherine’s story.
Maisie said: ‘Every day of filming was a reminder that we were portraying a story of the horrors that humans are capable of inflicting on one another, but also the magic and the hope and the love…’
‘Ultimately, we wanted to make a show that was uplifting,’ she concluded.
The March issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on sale from February 8.
The New Look launches on Apple TV+ on 14 February.
