Anya Taylor-Joy's corset helped her get into character for Emma

Anya Taylor-Joy relied upon her corset to help her get into the mindset of her character in Emma.

The Split actress portrays upper-class wannabe matchmaker Emma Woodhouse in Autumn de Wilde’s new adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel Emma, which is set in the Georgian Regency era.

The 23-year-old had to wear corsets underneath the elaborate period costumes, and she admitted to U.S. Harper’s Bazaar magazine that getting laced into the restrictive garment at the start of every shoot day helped her channel Emma.

“It was so important to me to get it right because I was so possessed by Emma,” she said. “About two weeks in, I actually started relying on my corset to help me get the work done. The second my corset was put on, I was like, ‘I know what I’m doing. I’ve got this. It’s all going to be fine.’ I just had to be laced in first.”

When asked if she would occasionally wear sneakers to give her feet a break during close-up shots, Taylor-Joy insists both her and de Wilde were strict about staying in costume for the whole shoot.

“Not ever. I would never, could never. Autumn and I are not those sorts of people,” the star continued. “I think the most lenient I ever got was allowing my corset to be loosened a little bit. If I was in severe pain, then we would loosen it. But it was all authentic.”

De Wilde flew to New York to meet with Taylor-Joy and the actress “instantly fell in love with her”. Yet, she also was daunted about appearing in Emma because the character is so tricky to define.

“I thought, ‘Here is a character that is so difficult to pin down. Her emotions are flitting around so quickly. You can't decide whether she's an entitled princess or she's amazing,’” she shared. “The idea of getting to try and figure out how to play a character that changes on a switch really appealed to me.”

Emma is in cinemas now.