Emma Thompson calls out Hollywood’s anorexia problem
Emma Thompson has criticised Hollywood for the intense pressure it places on actresses to be thin, revealing she almost quit the film Brideshead Revisited when another actress was asked by the film’s producers to lose weight.
Thompson, speaking on Swedish talk show Skavlan while visiting Scandinavia with Greenpeace, unleashed her frustrations over the industries obsession with weight.
“There was a wonderful actress in a film I did called Brideshead Revisited,” the 57-year-old said, referring to the 2008 adaption. “The producer said to her, ‘Will you lose some weight?’ And she was absolutely exquisite!”
“I said to them, ‘If you speak to her about this again, on any level, I will leave this picture. You are never to do that,’” Thompson revealed.
“It’s evil what’s happening and what’s going on there, and it’s getting worse. The French fashion industry said they would get rid of size zero and then, you know, they didn’t.
“The anorexia – there’s so many kids, girls and boys now, and actresses who are very, very thin into their 30s, who simply don’t eat. They don’t eat,” she said.
“Sometimes there are just some subjects that you absolutely have to make noise about because it’s so tedious and it’s gone on and on.”
In the interview, the British actress joked about how she’s never moved to LA because she’s“too fat” to live in Hollywood.
“I never moved to the US,” she said. “I couldn’t. Can you imagine? Every time I go to LA I think, ‘Oh God, I am too fat to go there.’”
Thompson also revealed how she handles comments about her weight, saying she simply retorts: “Sorry, do you want me to be an actress or a model?”