Rebel Wilson says Pitch Perfect contract banned her from losing weight
Rebel Wilson was mandated to maintain her size throughout the five years of filming Pitch Perfect and its sequels
Aux News Rebel Wilson
Hollywood’s track record with a healthy body image—be that what the industry projects outwardly or how it polices stars’ bodies inwardly—is less than stellar, to say the least. This is true not just in how showbusiness puts undue pressure on performers to be thin, but also in the way it forces fat actors into playing certain stereotypical roles. Rebel Wilson has spoken about this at length over the course of her highly publicized weight loss journey, and continues to reveal the invasive ways that her professional life encroached upon her relationship with her own body.
Appearing on the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Wilson says she “did wait until Pitch Perfect seemed like it was over” to kickstart what she called her “Year of Health.” That’s because “I couldn’t lose a massive amount of weight because I was in the contracts for that movie,” she reveals. “You can’t lose, I think it was not more than 10 pounds, or gain more than 10 pounds. You have to kind of stay at the weight, it’s like, in your contract.”
Wilson’s character in the films is called “Fat Amy,” which does tie the character to a certain weight. (For what it’s worth, Wilson says she “loved” playing the character and had the “best fun” filming the trilogy.) Yet it still seems inappropriate for a film studio to make any mandate about an actor’s body, particularly when the character’s weight could easily be written around. They could just call her “Amy,” or her actual name, which, for the record, is “Patricia.”
But the studio—or whoever drew up her Pitch Perfect contract—wasn’t the only part of the Hollywood machine that had qualms about the actor changing sizes. Wilson previously shared that she “got a lot of pushback from my own team” when she decided to “physically transform and change my life,” as she explained to the BBC. “And they were like, ‘Why? Why would you wanna do that?’ Because I was earning millions of dollars being the funny fat girl and being that person.”
“I was stereotyped in playing that fat funny friend, which is so hard because I love those roles. I love doing the roles. I love those characters,” she reflects now on Call Her Daddy. “But then I did want to do more things but I felt like being the bigger girl you’re just more pigeonholed.”
27 Comments
I have to wonder at what point does it start to significantly bad for your health when clauses like this are put in contracts as in how much alteration (and for how long), what kind of alteration and not just in her case either.
Day 1.
Wilson’s case is probably an outlier when it comes to clauses like that. It’s not super common to require an actor maintain being overweight but clauses about changing their hair style and/or color, facial hair, tanning and in the case of like action stars, maintaining some high level of fitness so they look good in those superhero suits is normally how those clauses are structured.
Is this done for the sake of the film’s continuity or is it as nefarious as the headline makes it sound?
I don’t think it was necessarily that unhealth(ier) in her case because she’s been on the huskier side for most of her life and only decided to drop a lot of weight later on.So on some level her body was already used to carrying all that weight (even though, yes we acknowledge that generally being overweight is not good and is generally unhealthy).It’s more of a problem when you have to put it on or take it off in a more sudden than natural way for a role and to go up or down to a weight that is not in the range that you’ve carried all your life, because typically this usually involves using stuff like anabolics, PDA’s or steroids (in the case of men) or unhealthy practices like starving or fasting to drop weight fast (in the case of both men and women).It’s obviously easier to recover from (that sort of yo-yo-ing) the younger you are, but we’re typically not built to be at weight levels that we’ve not carried for most of our lives.She’s clearly been planning on losing weight for a while and these movies kept her from doing it earlier. But when she eventually was able to get around to doing it, to her credit she did it the right way with a good diet and exercising(instead of the diet pills or tummy-tuck/staple, routes)
At least it wasn’t as bad as requiring Ron Howard to not noticeably age during the run of the Andy Griffith Show. The anti-HGH damned near killed him
killed his hair.
Wait i thought being that size was a GOOD thing, right? Isn’t that the new wisdom?
no fuckhead people just want you to shut the fuck up about their weight
no… i don’t care about anyone’s weight… I care about them not giving a shit, and it encouraging the people around me to not give a shit too
Wish they had something like this for Anya Joy Taylor before she lost all that weight. I used to be crazy about her
“Yet it still seems inappropriate for a film studio to make any mandate about an actor’s body, particularly when the character’s weight could easily be written around.” Right? It’s not like they asked her if she’d maintain a certain weight for a certain period of time in exchange for a boatload of money and she agreed.
Yea it’s not that surprising. I mean Daniel Craig was 50 when he made No Time to Die and Hugh Jackman was 45 when he made Days of Future Past. At those ages I am pretty sure all that time in the gym to prepare for those roles wasn’t for fun. Especially when you hear stories about how when an actor in an action movie has to do a scene that shows off their muscles definition, it’s usually the first day of shooting since that kind of thing isn’t sustainable.Also wasn’t Pitch Perfect was a total surprise hit? So would they really have locked her in for a 3 movie contract before the first one was made?
I always like to refer to Rob McElhenney’s post when talking about actors getting shredded for roles.
“Look, it’s not that hard. All you need to do is lift weights six days a
week, stop drinking alcohol, don’t eat anything after 7pm, don’t eat
any carbs or sugar at all, in fact just don’t eat anything you like, get
the personal trainer from Magic Mike, sleep nine hours a
night, run three miles a day, and have a studio pay for the whole thing
over a six to seven-month span. I don’t know why everyone’s not doing
this. It’s a super realistic lifestyle and an appropriate body image to
compare oneself to.”
I can’t remember where I read it but I read an article about Daniel Craig specifically and how for the most recent Bond movie they basically expected a 50 year old to get into the shape of a 22 year old elite athlete.
I think they really missed an opportunity here. Can you imagine an aging Bond, struggling not only with his foes, but with his own failing body? I’d watch that.
Isn’t that pretty much just what the Roger Moore movies were?
It wasn’t Moore, but I think that’s what Never Say Never Again was.
You’re right, that was the one Connery made after he had been out of the role for a while. I always liked that one, probably because Connery was such a better bond than Roger Moore and it was nice to have him back.
I was kind of joking about Roger Moore because they never acknowledged his age even though it was super obvious that he was too old for that shit by his last few movies.
I got tired just watching A View To A Kill.
Yes, It was called Never Say Never Again.
Also, steroids.
Did his contract say he wasn’t allowed to get any older?
Exactly. If it wasn’t enough of an issue to stop her from signing on the dotted line and taking the money, then surely her beliefs were not compromised.
Are we really processing this as new information again? This has gone round and round the news cycle since Pitch Perfect 2 came out.
As usual, 30 Rock nailed it years ago when Jenna got fat (but not obese) and Jack told Liz “She needs to lose 30 pounds, or gain 60. Anything in between has no place in television.”
Would it have been a HUGE amount of extra work for them to write something like:
“Wow, check it: Fat Amy lost like a lot of weight over the summer!”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to stop calling her ‘Fat Amy’ and start calling her like ‘Weird-Tits Amy’!”I don’t know how kids talk these days.