Actress Emma Thompson said the pressure to be thin is plaguing the film business more than ever.
“It’s evil what’s happening and what’s going on out there, and it’s getting worse,” she said on the Swedish talk show Skavlan last week.
“The anorexia — there’s so many kids, girls and boys now, and actresses who are very, very thin who are into their 30s, simply don’t eat,” she added.
Thompson joked on the March 24 show that she isn’t permitted to enter Los Angeles because she exceeds the weight limit. She noted that at age 21 she wrote a comedy bit to address the body-perception issue. “The best diet that you can do is auto-cannibalism where you eat yourself to an optimum body weight,” the actress said.
But she conceded the problem is no laughing matter. Thompson recalled an incident when a producer on 2008’s “Brideshead Revisited” asked a costar to lose weight. The actress said she told the producer she would walk if the subject were ever broached again.
“Sometimes there are just some subjects that you absolutely have to make noises about because it’s so tedious and it’s gone on and on,” she said.
Celebrities from Demi Lovato to Lady Gaga to Christina Ricci have shared their battles with eating disorders.
Thompson’s comments begin around the 14:30 mark above.
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