Elle Fanning has claimed her contact lenses “burned into (her) eye” on the set of The Neon Demon.

The 2016 psychological horror opens with a teenage aspiring model, played by Fanning, seemingly dead with her eyes open after bleeding out on a couch. However, the camera slowly pulls back in one continuous shot and reveals the model is simply posing for a photoshoot.

During a conversation with Jenna Ortega for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Elle admitted holding that awkward position for such a long time came at a price.

“There’s an opening shot and I’m playing dead and I have contacts, so… I’ve never lost a staring contest, ever, but it was 11 minutes or something and my eyes were open the entire time and the lights were so bright – and they melted my contacts all over my eye. They burned into my eye,” she stated.

Ortega, who adopts an intense stare for her portrayal of Wednesday Addams in the TV show Wednesday, noted that she has never encountered such a problem.

“No way. I don’t even come close. The whole staring thing, it was just that you blink on other people’s lines,” she replied.

The Neon Demon, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starred Fanning, Jena Malone, Karl Glusman, Bella Heathcote, and Abbey Lee.

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