It’s officially old news to talk about method acting. Nobody really cares if you spent three years perfecting an Elvis accent or sent a dead rat to your co-star in order to get into character. The next big trend in acting is to hold your breath for just long enough that you get the perfect shot, but not so long that you cut off airflow to your brain. It’s a very minuscule window, but it’s all the rage!
Kate Winslet was able to hold her breath for whopping seven minutes while filming Avatar 2, while her costar Sigourney Weaver clocked in at six and a half minutes. This blows Tom Cruise’s former record out of the water (literally!!!) and now women are at the forefront of the “holding your breath underwater” movement. Now, Jennifer Coolidge wants to get in on the competition… just so she can ask them how they do it.
[SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE WHITE LOTUS]
Coolidge starred in The White Lotus and her character, unfortunately, met her end in the season finale. Her body was seen floating lifelessly for several painful seconds, which turned out to be one of the hardest things for Coolidge to shoot. “It’s just that you have to hold your breath for so long. And you get tired of doing it. You have to go a long period of time,” the actress said while speaking to Entertainment Weekly.
“I heard that Kate Winslet has out-competed Tom Cruise in the holding the breath the longest thing, I heard she can hold her breath for seven minutes or something like that. And boy, I would love to ask her how she did that,” Coolidge said, admitting that she was unable to hold her breath quite as long as they did. “When they say go under and hold your breath as long as you can, I go under and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m done.'” Considering the fact that all she had to do was lay there and look dead, it worked out great.
The good news is that there are several dozen Avatar installments in the works, so she could always ask James Cameron for some tips. He sure loves telling people what to do.
