Claire Foy says she was 'made to feel really uptight' for being scared to film with a 'random' elephant
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Claire Foy is addressing the elephant in the room. Or, well, the scene.
The Emmy-winning actress explained that one of her biggest pet peeves is a lack of safety on set, and recounted an experience in which her concerns about working alongside elephants in the 2017 film Breathe were downplayed during Thursday's episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
The film, which marked Andy Serkis' directorial debut, is based on the real-life story of Robin (Andrew Garfield) and Diana Cavendish (Foy), a globetrotting married couple whose lives are forever changed after Robin is paralyzed from polio at the age of 28. The pair's adventures in Kenya were filmed at a South African game reserve, where Foy said they were encouraged to speed toward the gentle giants living there.
"One thing that does really, really get on my nerves is things not being safe. Stunts — I can't tell you the amount of situations I've been like, 'No, it's alright! You're about to meet an elephant! Doesn't matter! You don't need to meet the elephant before — just drive at it at high speed and get out of the car and meet the elephant!'" Foy said on the podcast.
She continued, "I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be okay with that, and now I'm being made to feel really uptight and high-maintenance because I'm quite scared of meeting a giant elephant."
"Maybe I was a bit of a baby about it," Foy added in hindsight. "But I was a bit like, 'I feel like this is a bit unsafe, guys. It's not a trained elephant. It's just a random elephant that we're driving up to.'"
Representatives for the film's distributor, Bleecker Street, and Serkis did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.
Foy previously discussed being "terrified" of the way she met the elephants during a 2017 interview with The New York Times.
"We had to drive at speed straight at the elephants and brake suddenly. I was screaming, 'Oh my God, this is a bit, like, kamikaze isn't it?!'" She recalled at the time. "And Andy Serkis is like, 'No, Claire, it's fine, just hold my hand.' Andrew Garfield is in the Jeep, being passive — like, 'Come and sleep in the Jeep with me' — and I'm just terrified. I nearly [lost it]."
Bleecker Street/Participant Media Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy in 'Breathe'
"I could just see the headline: 'Two actors die in a jeep after being charged by elephants,'" she continued. "But then the female elephant smelled me, and that was it. She moved on, and it was an incredible experience."
While speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Foy noted that dangerous situations like this on set aren't exactly uncommon.
"I can't tell you the amount of times I've been involved in stunts where I've just gone, 'This isn't okay.' And then everyone goes, 'No, it's fine!' And then you go, 'Okay, I'm going to trust that you know what's going on here,' and it turns out no one does," she said. "It's bad. But then I haven't done anything like that in a few years, so I think it's probably changed."
Watch Foy discuss the elephant incident — and the group chat for her new movie Women Talking — in the interview above.
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