Minnie Driver Reveals How She Kept From “Fainting” In Queen Elizabeth I’s Gowns On ‘Serpent Queen’

For Minnie Driver, getting into character as Queen Elizabeth I hardly felt like the royal treatment.

The Serpent Queen actress revealed that she had to tape ice packs to her thighs under her gowns while filming season 2 of the Starz period drama in France’s Loire Valley during a heatwave.

“I absolutely did,” Driver told the Boston Herald. “It was 100 degrees-plus. Our costumes were lined with neoprene, and they weighed 60 pounds. So it was intense, it was incredibly hot. Taping ice packs, actually, was the only way of not fainting — and you had to keep drinking enough water.”

She noted, “It means that you have extraordinary focus. That is part of being an actor.”

Driver said the shoot was “very busy” and “uncomfortable for everybody,” adding: “But it’s funny — you just get on with something when there isn’t really a choice.”

“I find it unbelievable that we all did that. But we did,” Driver continued. “I lost 10 pounds by the time I finished. My corsets weren’t really holding me in anymore.”

Serpent Queen tells the story of Catherine de Medici (Samantha Morton) and how she became one of the most powerful and longest-serving rules in French history.

In March, Driver was cast as the infamous “Virgin Queen” who goes toe-to-toe with Catherine in the upcoming season, premiering July 12 on Starz. She noted to the Herald that the two “never actually met in real life.”

“They wrote to each other,” said Driver. “They had a huge correspondence through their lives. But this is an imagined meeting of two women jostling for political power.”