Rebel Wilson Reveals How Her Weight Loss Journey Redirected Her Career: 'I Kind of Untypecast Myself by Losing Weight'
The Rebel Rising: A Memoir author, 45, recently spoke with SiriusXM radio host Ben Harlum about the pivot in her career since losing 80 pounds over five years ago.
'From that point, I started getting offered more serious roles,' she revealed, citing her upcoming role as Lady Capulet in Juliet & Romeo and her role in British indie, The Almond and the Seahorse.
'So I think I kind of untypecast myself by losing weight,' she confessed. 'I mean, I loved being the bigger, funny girl.' Adding, 'Loved playing Fat Amy in the Pitch Perfect movies. It was so cool, and that still is me in so many respects. I guess people ... once I did lose weight, they started to see me a bit differently.'
She also revealed that when she set out to become an actress, she envisioned more dramatic roles. 'I wanted to be like Dame Judi Dench and be really serious.'
'It's just, I had something that people would like to laugh at, and then Nicole Kidman gave me this scholarship to come to America and specialize in comedy, and so that's what I did,' she explained. 'Then when I came to Hollywood, I was just the full comedy girl.'
'But now it's kind of like almost going back to my roots as an actress and doing some serious stuff as well,' she said.
In March 2024, she spoke with The Sunday Times about her weight loss journey and her a "year of health" in 2020. But she revealed, 'Basically, no one apart from my mom wanted me to lose weight,' she said. 'People thought I'd lose my pigeonhole in my career, playing the fat funny character, and they wanted me to continue in that.'
She also spoke about her brief experience with Ozempic. Wilson said she took the FDA-approved type 2 diabetes drug for maintenance after losing weight.
'Someone like me could have a bottomless appetite for sweets, so I think those drugs can be good," the actress said, before noting that she no longer takes Ozempic.
Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
That same month, the actress spoke with PEOPLE and revealed that she was an 'emotional eater' and detailed the 'emotional war' she experienced over her weight.
'I think to many people I'm a beacon of body positivity because I see people who are considered medically obese if you look at their weight, but I think they are absolutely beautiful,' she said. 'I really think beauty is at any shape and size so I do really promote that."
'So people are like, 'Well, how can you be so body-positive and then be hating yourself?' But I wasn't hating myself, I was only hating those shameful behaviors,' she added.
Read the original article on People
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
18 minutes ago
- UPI
Glenn Close lands lead in Channel 4's drama 'Maud'
1 of 3 | Glenn Close is set to star in Channel 4's series, "Maud." File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Glenn Close has landed the lead in Channel 4's drama, Maud, which is based on Helene Tursten's short story collections, An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed. Close will play the titular heroine, described by the British network as a "hilariously brusque, cantankerous, and ruthless older woman... and those are her nice qualities. She's also a killer with a tortured past." Filming on the six-part series is to take place later this year in London. No premiere date or additional casting have been announced yet. "Maud is a deliciously dark and daring drama and the amazing Glenn Close will bring a thrilling complexity to the role," Gwawr Lloyd, the network's acting head of drama, said in a press release Monday. Close's credits include The Big Chill, Dangerous Liaisons, Fatal Attraction, Reversal of Fortune, The Paper, 101 Dalmatians, Damages and Tehran. Glenn Close turns 78: a look back Glenn Close arrives with her daughter for the premiere of "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" at the Loews Astor Plaza theatre in New York City on May 16, 1999. Photo by Ezio Petersen/UPI | License Photo
Los Angeles Times
20 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘& Juliet' euphorically turns Shakespeare's tragedy into a Max Martin dance party
Everyone can use an editor, and Shakespeare is no exception. Fortunately, he married one. Tired of being cooped up with the kids in Stratford-upon-Avon, Anne (Teal Wicks), wife of the great playwright, pops down to London to see the first performance of 'Romeo and Juliet.' The new tragic ending that Shakespeare (Corey Mach) proudly previews to the company strikes her as completely wrongheaded. 'What if … Juliet doesn't kill herself?' she proposes. As strong-willed as her husband, she doesn't wish to argue the point. She merely wants to put her idea to the test. Behold the premise of '& Juliet,' the euphoric dance party of a musical that updates Shakespeare with a dose of 21st century female empowerment. The production, which opened Friday at the Ahmanson Theatre under the fizzy direction of Luke Sheppard, reimagines a new post-Romeo life for Juliet while riding a magic carpet of chart-toppers from juggernaut Swedish producer Max Martin, who has spun gold with Katy Perry, Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, among other pop titans. This good-time jukebox musical relies as much on its wit as on its catalog of pop hits. The show's music and lyrics are credited to Max Martin and friends — which sounds like a low-key cool table at the Grammy Awards. The clever book by Emmy winner David West Read ('Schitt's Creek') creates a world that can contain the show's musical riches without having to shoehorn in songs in the shameless fashion of 'Mamma Mia!' Take, for instance, one of the early numbers, 'I Want It That Way,' a pop ballad made famous by the Backstreet Boys. Anne starts singing the song when Shakespeare initially resists her idea of giving Juliet back her life. She wants him to go along with her suggested changes not because she's sure she's right but because she wants him to trust her as an equal partner. The song is redeployed in a way that has little bearing on the lyrics but somehow feels coherent with the original emotion. Obviously, this is a commercial musical and not a literary masterpiece on par with Shakespeare's tragedy of ill-starred lovers. '& Juliet' would have trouble withstanding detailed scrutiny of its plot or probing interrogation of Juliet's character arc. But Read smartly establishes just the right party atmosphere. Juliet (a vibrant Rachel Webb), having survived the tragedy once scripted for her, travels from Verona to Paris with an entourage to escape her parents, who want to send her to a nunnery for having married Romeo behind their backs. Her clique includes Angélique (Kathryn Allison), her nurse and confidant; May (Nick Drake), her nonbinary bestie; and April, her newbie sidekick out for fun who Anne plays in disguise. Shakespeare casts himself as the carriage driver, allowing him to tag along and keep tabs on the cockeyed direction his play is going. In Paris, the crew heads directly to the Renaissance Ball, which has the look and feel of a modern-day mega-club. Entry is barred to Juliet, but not because she's ridiculously underage. Her name isn't on the exclusive guest list. So through the back door, Juliet and her traveling companions sashay as the production erupts in 'Blow,' the Kesha song that encourages everyone to get their drink on and let loose. The dance setting — kinetically envisioned by scenic designer Soutra Gilmour, lighting designer Howard Hudson, sound designer Gareth Owen and video and projection designer Andrzej Goulding into a Dionysian video paradise — provides the all-purpose license for Martin's music. It's the atmosphere and the energy that matter most. Paloma Young's extravagant costumes raise the level of decadent hedonism. In this welcoming new context — imagine 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical' suffused with girl power — there's never anything odd about the characters grinding and wailing like karaoke superstars. The ecstatic motion of Jennifer Weber's choreography renders dramatic logic irrelevant. But love is the name of the game, and both Juliet and May fall for François (Mateus Leite Cardoso), a young musician with a geeky sense of humor who's still figuring out his identity. May doesn't expect romance to be part of their fate. In the Spears song 'I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,' they give powerful expression to an inner confusion this musical romance is determined to sort out with an appropriate partner. Unlike for the original characters, a happy ending is no longer off-limits. Shakespeare and Anne wrestle to get the upper hand of a plot that seems to have a mind of its own. Shakespeare pulls a coup at the end of the first act that I won't spoil except to say that what's good for the goose proves dramaturgically viable for the gander. This spirited competition stays in the background, but their marital happiness matters to us. Mach's Shakespeare has the cocky strut of a rapper-producer with a long list of colossal hits. Wicks gives Anne the heartfelt complexity of one of her husband's bright comic heroines. There's a quality of intelligent feeling redolent of Rosalind in 'As You Like It' in Wicks' affecting characterization and luscious singing. But the musical belongs to Juliet, and Webb has the vocal prowess to hijack the stage whenever she's soaring in song. If Juliet's character is still a work in progress, Webb endows her with a maturity beyond her years. She makes us grateful that the Capulet daughter is getting another crack at life. When the big musical guns are brought out late in the second act ('Stronger,' 'Roar'), she delivers them as emancipatory anthems, fueled by hard-won epiphanies. Allison's Angélique is just as much a standout, renewing the bawdy earthiness of Shakespeare's nurse with contemporary sass and rousing singing. If the supporting cast of men doesn't make as deep an impression, the festive comic universe is nonetheless boldly brought to life. '& Juliet' bestows the alternative ending everyone wishes they could script for themselves — a second chance to get it right. This feel-good musical is just what the doctor ordered in these far less carefree times.
2 hours ago
Amanda Knox and Monica Lewinsky team up for new series, say their stories are similar
Amanda Knox is opening up about teaming up with Monica Lewinsky to reclaim her story in the upcoming limited series based on her life, "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox." The two executive producers of the series sat down with "Good Morning America" Monday and said working on the new show together felt like a natural fit. "I had a first-look television deal at the time, and I thought, aha! Another young woman who had suffered in the media, had been feasted on on the world stage, and luckily, like a savvy executive, she got all the yeses, and we were off to the races," Lewinsky said. Lewinsky, now 52, was catapulted to international infamy in the mid-1990s, after news of her affair with then-President Bill Clinton, while she was a young White House intern, made global headlines. Knox, now 38, captured headlines in 2007, when her roommate, British exchange student Meredith Kercher, was murdered while the two young women were studying abroad in Italy. Knox was convicted of the murder by an Italian court in 2009, along with Raffaele Sollecito, another student she was dating at the time, but both convictions were overturned on appeal in 2011. In 2008, Rudy Guede was convicted of Kercher's murder. He was released in December 2020 after serving 16 years in prison. Italy's highest court subsequently ordered a new trial in 2013, and Knox and Sollecito were reconvicted of murder in 2014, before the high court overturned the murder convictions again in 2015. Knox served four years in prison in Italy before she was released in 2011 and acquitted in 2015. Knox said that although her experience differed from Lewinsky's, they still shared multiple similarities. "We were both interrogated. We've both been, you know, viciously turned into characters of ourselves in the media," Knox said. "And I think that the thing that we actually were both most interested in was making sure that this show had a wider lens." She added, "It's not just a courtroom drama, it's not your typical true crime biopic. It's a more personal journey and one that really begins with the story of what happens before -- and then, of course, what happens after the worst experience of your life." In the series, Knox is portrayed by actress Grace Van Patten, known for her roles in Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers" and "Tell Me Lies." Both Knox and Lewinsky serve as executive producers on the series. Knox said making this new series forced her to relive a chapter of her life that she said included some of the "worst moments." Despite this, she said the experience was still cathartic. "It felt like I was allowed to grieve for the first time, because it was outside of myself, and I got to watch myself and these people portray this journey, and it was as if I was there … and I was grieving in a big way for the first time in ways that I wasn't able to," Knox said. Both Knox and Lewinsky said while making "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," they made sure to honor Kercher, who was never able to return from Italy to her home in south London. "Everyone on this project understood that this is a story about two young women who went to go study abroad in Perugia, Italy, and only one of them survived," Knox said. "And I think that the way that I was turned into a caricature, in a big way, she was as well … and we really ground in this series that this is a real person, and it was very important for us to do that." "I didn't know her very long but, like, she was there, and she plays a huge role in my life even today. And so, I hope the audience feels that," Knox added. "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," an eight-part limited series, premieres on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ with the first two episodes on Wednesday. New subsequent episodes will be available to stream every Wednesday, with the finale out Oct. 1.
