Thompson was speaking on Swedish chat show 'Skavlan'.
Emma Thompson has spoken out about the “evil” pressures that Hollywood puts on actresses to lose weight and stay thin on movies, revealing she almost quit Brideshead Revisited because another female star was asked to do so.
The 57 year old star made the comments during an interview with Swedish chat show ‘Skavlan’ earlier this week, when another guest brought up the subject in an interview. She didn’t reveal the name of the actress who was the subject of the request by the producers of Brideshead, but confirmed that she did confront them over it, and that she threatened to walk.
Emma Thompson spoke about the pressure female actors are under to be thin
“Actresses who are into their thirties simply don’t eat,” she said. “There was a wonderful actress I was working with on Brideshead Revisited, and the producers said, ‘Will you lose some weight?’ And 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.’ It’s evil what’s going on out there and it’s getting worse.”
Brideshead Revisited was made into a film back in 2008 under the direction of Julian Jarrold, an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel. Hayley Atwell, Felicity Jones and Greta Scacchi were also among the female stars of the film, which also starred Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw.
More: Emma Thompson won’t be reprising her ‘Love, Actually’ role as it’s “too sad and too soon”
Thompson also spoke about the routine pressure over the same issue that replicates itself throughout the film industry on both sides of the Atlantic. She revealed that’s why she never wanted to move to America.
“I never moved to the US,” she said. “I couldn’t. Can you imagine? Every time I go to L.A. I think, ‘Oh God, I am too fat to go there.’”
She attacked the fashion industry on the same basis. “The French fashion industry said, ‘We will get rid of size zero,’ and didn’t,” she said. “There are some subjects you have to keep making noises about because it’s so tedious, and it’s gone on and on.”
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