Warning: This article discusses consuming issues.
The movie facilities round a “shallow” man named Hal (Jack Black) who will get hypnotized into solely with the ability to see girls’s interior magnificence in order that he now not fixates on their physiques. He finally falls in love with Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow), who’s chubby — which, after all, he cannot see.
Gwyneth wore a fats go well with and prosthetics with a view to painting Rosemary within the movie, and he or she’s lengthy been open about feeling uncomfortable with the position.
Shortly after the movie was launched, Gwyneth advised W Magazine: “The first day I tried [the fat suit] on, I was in the Tribeca Grand and I walked through the lobby. It was so sad; it was so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese.”
“I felt humiliated because people were really dismissive,” she added, earlier than occurring to name your complete movie “a disaster” a long time later.
But whereas Gwyneth donned a bodysuit and prosthetics for the position, a then-20-year-old aspiring actor named Ivy Snitzer was the one used to offer footage of close-up pictures of Rosemary’s arms, torso, and thighs.
This week, Ivy sat down with The Guardian for an in-depth interview about her expertise being Gwyneth’s physique double for the movie — and he or she obtained brutally sincere in regards to the horrific results that the position had on her.
Ivy started by stressing that she felt “really comfortable” whereas really capturing the movie, and had good experiences with main actors Gwyneth and Jack. She did, nonetheless, notice {that a} senior member of the manufacturing crew as soon as took situation with the truth that she was “losing weight” throughout filming, telling her, “This entire movie is based on you not losing weight!”
But regardless of her (largely) nice interactions on set, issues took an terrible flip for Ivy as soon as Shallow Hal was really launched.
“It didn’t occur to me that the film would be seen by millions of people,” she mentioned. “It was like the worst parts about being fat were magnified.”
Ivy revealed she was accused of selling weight problems after noting throughout an interview that “it’s not the worst thing in the world to be fat.” She was later despatched “diet pills” by a viewer who’d by some means discovered her dwelling tackle, whereas others mailed her love letters.
“I got really scared,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Maybe I’m done with the concept of fame, maybe I don’t want to be an actor. Maybe I’ll do something else.’”
Ivy went on to disclose that two years after Shallow Hal was launched, in 2003, she had a gastric band surgical procedure, which tightly restricted the quantities she may eat. “I’m sure I wanted to be small and not seen. I’m sure that’s there, but I don’t ever remember consciously thinking about it,” she mentioned of her choice to get the surgical procedure.
Noting that she ended up “technically starving to death,” Ivy opened up intimately about coping with a number of consuming issues. “I was so thin you could see my teeth through my face and my skin was all gray,” she mentioned, earlier than later including, “I kind of alienated a lot of my friends. My mother was also dying; it was bleak. Humans shouldn’t have to experience how very bleak that particular time in my life was.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ivy famous that hasn’t seen Shallow Hal because it premiered, and that her 13-year-old daughter is “not going” to observe it both.
In reality, Ivy admitted that she feels “scared and sad” that younger viewers who watched Shallow Hal could have been left with lasting insecurities on account of the movie’s narrative, which has been described as “offensive” and “anti-fat” over time.
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