STFU: Bigger Ain’t Always Better

Posted by Josh Radde (josh@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 4, 2008

Every market in the acting industry eventually becomes saturated. Kevin Carr wrote an article yesterday about how two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank is putting on some weight (20-30 pounds) to play the lead role in French Women Don’t Get Fat. Kevin’s argument was that since playing a mentally challenged person is no longer Kosher, a person has to put on weight to be taken seriously as a dramatic force.

News for you Kevin Carr: That market is saturated, too. Shut the flab up.

2001: Renee Zellweger puts on weight, adopts British accent, gets nominated.
2002: Nicole Kidman puts on a little weight and a prosthetic nose, wins Oscar.
2003: Charlize Theron becomes ugly, slightly fatter, wins Oscar.

Since then, no one has been rewarded for such a “gutsy,” “heroic” move. George Clooney put on 30 pounds for Syriana, but everyone knows he won that Oscar because Good Night and Good Luck wasn’t getting any love anywhere else. Marion Cotillard won last year, not because she gained weight and got uglied up (She wore a fatsuit in the film and had award-winning makeup artists at her side), but because she was in a biopic.* That’s what’s “in” these days, Kevin. Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Jamie Foxx, Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, and Cotillard all won awards for biopics (while Joaquin Phoenix, Leonardo DiCaprio, and David Strathairn were nominated).

So, in a sense, Swank’s becoming fat (or normal, whichever way you look at it) actually IS gutsy again because it’s going against the trend that Hollywood is currently in. Look what happened to Jared Leto. He gained a ton of weight for Chapter 27 and although people talked about it in the tabloids, the film walked away with only $56,000 from the box office.

Furthermore, let me take a minute and do something we don’t normally do here on FSR and defend a celebrity. Hilary Swank is not an “anorexic-thin actress”–far from it. She’s buff, man. Look at her in Million Dollar Baby. She would kick your ass before and after her paralysis. The aggression you have toward Ms. Swank is uncalled for, especially considering that actresses like Keira Knightley are half her size. Point to a muscle on Paris Hilton–find one, I challenge you. Swank is an actress that takes care of herself. She’s also an actress that likes to invest in a role physically. Actors and actresses know that to really become a character you may have to change your body type. People do it all the time–Christian Bale lost a dangerous amount of weight for The Machinest and then showed up on the Batman set with 50 extra pounds of muscle. Some people are just devoted and equate characterization with physical change. As actors, they are entitled to do so, and as the audience, we appreciate it when they do.

Hilary Swank is not the problem here, Kevin. It’s people like you in the media who create this double-standard for performers. Putting on weight? Well you’re obviously trying to show us how you can be “in touch” with normal people. Losing too much weight? Well now you’re just trying to fit into a Hollywood mold. Can’t we just agree that Ms. Swank is a gifted and talented actress? Can’t we single her out for being a two-time Oscar winner yet she still does absolute crap like The Reaping or The Core? There’s no reason to point out an actress for something as trivial as their weight when there’s plenty of material in what films they make. We’re not US Magazine here–weight is weight, and if it translates to the finished production then it doesn’t even matter anyway.

Besides, she’ll probably be nominated for playing Amelia Earhart in an upcoming biopic than playing some fat, French broad, anyway.

* I don’t consider The Hours or Monster as biopics, because even though they represent real-life people, Virginia Woolf was a recluse and not a public figure and Aileen Wuornos was a serial killer who was on the news for awhile. Neither is prolific or as major as Queen Elizabeth or Ray Charles.

Read more articles by Josh Radde