MAKING A SPLASH!

DARYL HANNAH ENDURED FREEZING WATER, AN UNWIELDY MERMAID TAIL AND BEING NAKED WHILE FILMING 1984'S SPLASH-BUT IT WAS ALL A DREAM COME TRUE

- JACK SMART

For Daryl Hannah, playing a mermaid in the 1984 hit Splash was more than a Hollywood breakthrough-it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. "It's a part I'd practiced for my whole childhood," says the Chicago native, now 63, of her star-making turn as a sea beauty who falls for a loser in love played by Tom Hanks. "We were fortunate enough to have a pool when I was young, so I would just spend all my time underwater, pretending." Presaging the actress's penchant for fantasy and sci-fi movies, she would invent narratives full of colorful aquatic characters in the pool, she says, "until I had blue lips and was forced to get out."

The filming of Splash's water sequences went much the same way. Looking back 40 years later on the boy-meets-mermaid romantic comedy that established Hanks and director Ron Howard as box office gold, Hannah recalls being "in absolute heaven" shooting 30 ft. under frigid water with no wet suit. "I can hold my breath for ages," she boasts. "I already have low blood pressure, but my heart rate drops even further. I get super, super chilled out."