Actor/ actresses who were told to lose weight for a TV series or ,ovie?

Shit, movie.

The Fats of Life girls.

Mandy Moore, for License to Wed

All of them??

LOL R4

Carrie Fisher in Star Wars

Margaret Cho

Cynthia Gibb for The Karen Carpenter Story.

R8- That was bad casting.

Jason Segal for The Five-Year Engagement (

Marie Osmond for the "Donny and Marie Show"

I assume Jodie Foster who was originally going to star in the TV movie The Best Little Girl in the World. But then the role went to Jennifer Jason Leigh, who originally weighed 98 pounds, but got down to 86 pounds.

Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz, they fed that girl amphetamines to keep her perky, up and thin.

R13 - Going way back.

Genie Francis from General Hospital during her initial run. It's no secret she got hooked on drugs trying to lose the weight and keep herself thin.

^^^ They should have made that one of the plot points of the show and filmed her in real time.

I swear I read that DL fave Chrissy Metz was contracted to have lap band surgery at the end of season one as part of her character’s journey. I couldn’t imagine something like that being possible. But it never came to be, perhaps it was there initially, but when the show blew up she gained enough power to get out of it?

In an Australian soap, Neighbours, a teen girl (Debbie Martin played by Marnie Reece Wilmore) was considered too big and with some encouragement by management told to drop a few kilos. She did over a production break. The reason being onscreen was she developed bulimia and shed the kilos. Incidentally the actress herself suggested the storyline as a means to explain her weight loss so I guess she wasn't too fussed.

Interestingly when Margot Robbie joined Neighbours she weighed a lot more when she started than a couple of months into her tenure. Have no idea if it was production mandated or not.

Another Australian soap, another fat actress told to lose weight. This time it's Home & Away and character Marilyn Chambers in her second stint in the 90s. The actress, Emily Symons, was summoned to the exec producers office at the time and told that she was too fat and that none of her characters clothes fit her any more and that the show would not be buying new clothes for her character. So if she didn't lose weight she wouldn't have a job. The actress was going through a failed marriage at the time so put on some weight. She promptly signed up to a gym and lost the extra weight.

That still doesn't beat though when Home & Away fired two girls for being ugly. Susie Rugg & Amy Mizzi. Susie Rugg was told she was too ugly to appear on magazine covers by the network producers and was axed before her three year contract was up. Amy Mizzi was considered too ugly to be paired with a hot guy on the show (Beau Brady) and management said that the audience wouldn't believe why a hot guy would go for the ugly girl so she was paired up with Chris Hemsworth's character instead (LOL I guess they didn't rate him either). She didn't even last a year before she was axed.

R15 When did Genie’s drug use start?

Christian Bale. And then he gained it for some roles and lost it some roles. And gain and lost a few more times. Good actor, but his internal organs must be a mess after all this.

Bale almost does not count.

Kate Winslet (in general). There was a time when she was natural and curvy and then transformed into the lollypop look (too slim body with big head).

Tracy Gold on Growing Pains

Kristen Dunst was asked by Sofia Coppola to lose weight for "The Beguiled". She refused.

Colin Firth had to lose weight for "A Single Man" and Armie Hammer had to lose 15 pounds for "Nocturnal Animals" because Tom Ford won't go for fatties.

They all fast and starve themselves before shooting a movie.

I’m sure Brittany Murphy was told to lose weight at some point. She was never chunky but when she started going for leads instead of kooky supporting roles she started to look unhealthy thin.

Not Delta Burke!

In fairness, she was pretty chubby in the episode of Frasier she did the start of her career R26

Alicia Silverstone - Batman & Robin (fat farm visit)

Janeane Garofalo - Men In Black (she didn't and lost the role to Linda Fiorentino)

Ryan Gosling - The Lovely Bones (showed up on set fat and was dismissed)

R24- Why did Sofia want Kirsten skinny?

I am guessing to make her appear younger. In the original, there’s visually a big age difference between Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman.

It suits the plot.

Richard E Grant was trying to bulk up before he got the part in Withnail and I, and was immediately told to lose the weight...

All female actress (with the exception of the Mindy Cohns and Roseannes) are at one point told to lose weight.

It's surprising how even off handed remarks are taken as orders. Tracey Gold says they told her to lose weight but not one of her cast members backs her up, saying they had some off the hand remarks like, "Hey Tracey better lay off the chips" but nothing anyone would take seriously.

A lot of these professional victims want any excuse to excuse their life failings.

Gary Coleman told me to lose "the junk in the trunk" so I quit.

I can't imagine any other TV show being rude enough to do that

I don't know who the actress is but:

[quote]“There was a wonderful actress in a film I did called Brideshead Revisited,” Thompson explained, referring to the 2008 British adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel co-starring Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, and Hayley Atwell. “The producer said to her, ‘Will you lose some weight?’ And she was absolutely exquisite!”

Just because the rest of the cast didn’t hear it, r33, doesn’t mean it wasn’t said to her. Most likely it was relayed through her manager or agent but I have zero problem believing she was at the very least “encouraged” to watch her weight by the network and/or producers.

I think Susan Olsen says she was told to lose weight during the Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

Brooke Shield's mother used to call her a fat ass. Then she lined up a gig for her schilling Slimfast.

I think there was a role in the 90s where they said Brooke had too much of an ass, but I don’t know which one it was.

Not Vivian Vance.

VV had sufficient.

Tom Hanks for Philadelphia

Victor Buono

Everybody from [italic]the Facts of Life[/italic] except Natalie.

Raymond Burr was told to lose weight when he was offered the Perry Mason role. He did - and then proceeded to gain, lose and gain the same 50 pounds for the series' entire 9-year run.

R45- Going way back.

Karen Carpenter

Matt Damon did for that movie with Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan. Courage Under Fire. So much weight that he damaged his adrenal glands.

Which gave him irreversible fauxliberalitis.

Patricia Arquette told Terry Gross on Fresh Air this week that when she was cast in Medium, she had just had a baby and was asked to lose weight.

She went to the head producer and said, "My character is a mom with three kids, not a swimsuit model." and was told her weight was fine.

Carrie Fisher for FORCE AWAKENS, Kirstie Alley for a bunch of stuff, Amy Schumer for a lot of shows she auditioned for,

Mimi

Rene Zellwiger for Bridget Jones.

I thought Rene has to put ON weight for Bridget Jones.

R49, she should have taken their advice. She’s way too fat to have that hunky husband on Medium.

Other direction R52

Bump

[quote]Gary Coleman told me to lose "the junk in the trunk" so I quit. I can't imagine any other TV show being rude enough to do that —Dixie Carter

Yet they kept me on and I outlived you, your replacement, Dana Plato, and both my predecessors as housekeeper. I win! I beat the [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] curse!

Sophie Turner in GoT.

[quote]R54 She’s way too fat to have that hunky husband on Medium.

???

R33, another problem was that the writers included fat jokes about Tracey's character in the script. The jokes were in the context of insults from the character's older brother; she wasn't fat, but the brother called her fat to get under her skin. Tracey internalized the scripted insults, though.

Brando showed up so fat to Apocalypse Now that he was hardly recognizable, but no one dared say shit to him. They shot the film anyway.

Yes, that’s why he’s shown in darkness, for the most part.

Blooper: