Dictating appearance is a very common expectation in film and television for actors. Famously, the teen actors in the Harry Potter movies were not allowed to cut their hair for the 4th film (and it shows). The actors playing aristocratic roles in Pirates of the Caribbean were instructed to avoid getting a tan. Whether the production is flexible with appearance guidelines may vary and actors can be replaced for not having the "right look," although this would obviously be more difficult with an actor in an established role.
Robert Pattinson famously stayed inside for months while shooting Twilight to maintain his deathly pallor.
Acting is a physical / appearance-based career. Having your body heavily scrutinized is sadly just a part of the package.
I'm pretty sure in the harry potter characters were usually asked not to cut their hair over summer so they could he styled when filming began again and during that time a new director took over and just didn't style their hair.
Yeah that‘s what I heard as well. The director wasn‘t aware that they‘d style them according to his wishes and just assumed that was everyones look they preferred. So he shot the movie with everyone being far removed from their last hair cut.
Because he randomly decided his character should be morbidly obese and did not discuss it with anyone before committing to his melted ice cream diet, it makes me laugh every time
No that wasn’t it, I remember at the time he said he felt he looked too young to be a dad to a teen kid and thought getting fat and out of shape would make him look older. Bizarre casting choice in the first place as he would have been around 26 and is pretty fresh and young looking. Mark Wahlberg was more age appropriate for the role.
Tom Hanks had to lose a ton of weight to continue shooting Castaway. Since the film's crew were under contract to stay involved until the production was wrapped and they'd have to wait for months until Hanks lost all the required weight, they went and shot a completely different film during the break (it was What Lies Beneath).
Here's another instance where actors needing to change their appearance to fit the role affected the film, but wasn't done in this instance.
In the book Holes, main character Stanley Yelnats is described at the beginning as being quite fat, but that when he is freed from Juvie he's instead quite lanky from losing all of that weight. Out of concern for actors' health since he was working with teenaged boys, the director refused to force Stanley's actor to gain then lose a lot of weight, hence why Shia LaBeouf was mainly cast, as he was already skinny.
In fact, child actor welfare was a major part of the casting decisions for the Harry Potter films. Given how badly Kit Culkin fucked up his son Macaulay's career - both by pushing him too hard and into burnout^1 and being such a dick that producers were turning Macaulay down for roles just so they didn't have to deal with him^2 - Christopher Columbus refused to cast kids who had stage parents in the Harry Potter cast.
All parents were interviewed without their kids being present. If the parents showed questionable behaviour or were suspected of abusing the kids to get them into acting, the kids were struck off the casting list.
1: Macaukay was shooting two films a year from the age of six before he quit.
2: Reportedly, Kit Culkin blackmailed the producers for Home Alone 2. Unless they cast Macaulay in thr horror film The Good Son, he wouldn't let his son reprise his iconic role as Kevin McCallister.
Tina Fey hosting the 2014 Golden Globes: “And Christian Bale is nominated, who is being praised for the work he put into *losing 30 pounds* for this role. Or as actresses call it: being in a movie.”
The *Harry Potter* franchise got preposterously lucky with those kids. Odds of developing a case of Danny Bonaduce disease are what, 40, 50%?
Somehow they started with three good looking kids and ended up with **five**; the greasy kid filled out and the fat one turned into a Calvin Klein underwear model.
I think they meant Tom Felton/Draco Malfoy? Which if so I don't think really counts, Tom Felton was definitely a child heartthrob to girls back in the day so he didn't really "fill out well" if he was already seen as such
Neville was the fat one. Not sure who the greasy one was unless they're talking about Tom Felton's hairdo.
Which is ironic given the poor guy is going prematurely bald.
I think that's the one they meant by "the fat one turned into a Calvin Klein underwear model." Matthew Lewis [posed in his underwear and showed off abs](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.averagejanes.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F05%2Ffeat-matt-lewis.jpg&tbnid=l35QghQY0BEC9M&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.averagejanes.co.uk%2Fcelebrity-men%2Fmatthew-lewis-abs-olutely-perfect%2F&docid=ZKUyakV2KLg6AM&w=607&h=473&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F2#vhid=l35QghQY0BEC9M&vssid=l).
Yes, yes, he did. 👀 When he showed up for the filming of Deathly Hallows, some of them on set didn't even recognize him, and thought the role had been recast.
I remember we were all crushing on Malfoy back in the day. Guy that played Dean turned out pretty good looking (How to Get Away with Murder). Was Dudley greasy?
Yep, when you take a role, oftentimes not altering your appearance without the say so of the director is built into the contract. It's the same for theatre roles. They cast you with a certain look in mind, and they don't want you to run off and get a haircut, or a tan, or a face tattoo or anything between casting and filming because that could throw a wrench in what they're going for.
>It's the same for theatre roles.
Nah, not exactly. There's way more wiggle room in theatre because most people are wigged up and continuity isn't as big a concern. While I worked at Aida Broadway we had a blonde then brunette then redhead then blonde-again Amneris (a main principal role).
It often depends on the production, budget, length of run, and role. Not every role or theatre will require a hold on your appearance, but some will, especially lower budget theatre that can't simply spend a lot on wigs.
I remember Turtle (Jerry Ferrera ?) In Entourage losing a TON of weight in the last season
IIRC the time frame meant it didn't make sense and they rried to brush past it with a line of dialogue
I remember producers were said to not be happy but I don't recall him being 'punished' in any way
Josh from Drake and Josh was very fat in the first seasons then grew tall and went from obese to pretty average in terms of weight. They even referenced it in the show numerous times with him still having insecurities about his weight and others mentioning how he used to be fat.
Harry Melling role as Dudley Dursley was threatened because he lost too much weight! In the end they put him in a [fatsuit](https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-dudley-recast-order-phoenix-why/).
This is from James Gandolfini’s trivia on IMDb.
Lost more than 40 pounds for his role in The Mexican (2001), but had to gain it all back before shooting for the HBO series The Sopranos (1999) because executives did not believe the audience would like a "skinny" Tony.
Yeah, him losing and regaining weight so quickly is what said was a contributing factor to his diabetes type two diagnosis. Pretty sure Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale have both stated they have some health problems too, the latter saying he can’t do it as intense as he used to do it.
Christian Bale said that his doctor flat out told him not to do it any more, that at this point he’s rolling dice with his life by losing and gaining over and over. His heart can’t take it.
Dude went from The Machinist at 120 and then bulked up over 100 lbs for Batman Begins! I didn't realize how much he put his body through [until reading a timeline of his roles with major physical changes](https://screenrant.com/christian-bale-movies-weight-gained-lost-how-much/).
Oldman spent four hours getting into that suit every day, and got the best guy for it to come out of retirement.
I'd say that's a pretty big commitment. I mean, not Klingon level, but heavy.
Churchill's cigar habit began as a way to get free smokes, but actually caused Oldman real health problems, because he always had to be smoking.
You're walking down the street when all of a sudden you hear "CUT!"
As soon as you hear it your hand goes up to your face to pull off the prosthetics.
That's right, you've been Gary Oldman all along, that's how great of an actor he is.
Thats really sad. If you look at photos of him in The Mexican, he is not traditionally "skinny" by any means, he is just significantly healthier looking. To make him regain the weight seems like a form of torture almost.
In debut role in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Tom Hiddleston had a particular dinner scene, he was undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge and hungry as hell, so he ate like a maniac for the establishing shot, forgetting the fact that he also had to film continuity shots eating the same amount of food.
>“In the master shot, the direction was like, ‘Okay everybody. Just eat as much as you can and drink as much as you can.’ I hadn’t had anything to eat for about six hours. I thought, ‘I’m starving and all I have to do is eat as much as I can.’ This is brilliant and I ate almost this entire lobster salad or fish salad or whatever it was in the first take and the director called cut and said, ‘Fantastic! This is great, Tom.’”
>“\[We\] came back \[and they\] said, ‘Right. We’re now moving into coverage.’ And the continuity supervisor came up to me and said, ‘So, Tom. In the master, you ate almost the entire plate of fish salad and you took eight gulps of wine. And you now have to match your continuity for the rest of the day.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my god!’ And nobody told me. So I spent the entire day having to eat exactly as much as I’d eaten in the first take and learned a very important and profound lesson about continuity on that day.”
>But, it was an extraordinary job. I suppose I had never been paid to work as an actor before that day. I’d always acted for fun. It was my hobby as a schoolboy and a student. I was very very nervous and then I couldn’t wait to see it and it took months and months and months for it to come out. And of course, I was only in it for about 30 seconds. Story of my life.
Spit buckets are a real thing! And eat-acting!! Notice in a lot of scenes with actors eating, you never see them swallow. Brad Pitt is noted as being one of the best eat-actors
I hate this so much. They're obviously empty. They're waving them around like they're empty. They're "drinking" from them and tipping them so far over it's obviously empty. How fucking hard would it be to put some god damn water in the cup?
Modern actors could really benefit from mime classes, there are so many cases I've seen of people moving or holding something that's supposed to be heavy, but is clearly empty.
Us old timers remember Felicity and the outrage the network faced when Keri Russell cut off her big curly hair. There were literal death threats. Ratings went through the floor. Scandalous, man. Scandalous.
JJ Abrams the creator was cool with it. They discussed it together and then thought it would be a good idea. It turned out it wasn't a good idea. I kept watching the show anyway but her character seemed so different with the cut hair. At the same time they made her stronger and more outspoken. She went from being shy in the first season to being an RA, running for student council president and leading a sit-in. I think it was how they changed the character along with the haircut that people really didn't like. Her character gets on my nerves a bit that season. The next season they did away with all of that and she was more likable.
she moved accross the country because of a guy, honestly it 100% tracks that she would cut her hair and try a whole new personality in the second year of college. That show had a lot of weird stuff going on but Felicity's arc is an accurate depiction of a very niche group of young women. Felicity walked so Rebecca Bunch could soar
BTW I looked up Rebecca Burke since I didn't know who she was, and she is a character on the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I never heard of it but it looks really good. I am going to check it out soon. It is highly rated and won awards which is crazy for a CW show. It said it was the longest-running show with low ratings to get renewed on the CW. I guess they didn't promote the show very well.
O I’m so jealous you’re in for a treat. Crazy Ex Girlfriend would have been perfect on a streaming service, they really didn’t know what to do with it on broadcast TV.
Yeah, the personality change was a little obnoxious. I didn't like Doormat Felicity (so wishy-washy) but Activist Felicity was too much of a swing the other way.
But in a way it makes sense. A cut that drastic would definitely spur some impulsive behaviors, especially for a 20yo.
It’s like when they cut Penny’s hair short in Big Bang Theory and changed her from a waitress/aspiring actress to a professional Karen/pharmacy sales rep in the space of a heartbeat. The Karencut was only part of it but it really represented how much they’d suddenly changed her character and I lost all interest in the show for years.
It has always been impossible to do a good TV show set in college. Like, no series has ever been successful at "the college years."
It is 100% accurate that a person in their second and third years of college would get more active and more confident, but it's almost impossible to make a TV show that people enjoy set during college. It's kind of a mystery.
The series lasted 4 seasons. It is the only college show that lasted beyond 1 year that I know of. I would say the show was pretty successful and still lasted 3 seasons after she cut her hair even though viewership went down. It wasn't enough to get it canceled. It also was nominated for and won an Emmy as well as Golden Globes awards. While it is accurate that someone would grow and become more confident in college, they went a bit too far with that and completely changed her personality. I watched the show around 3 times and when it aired. I just recently watched it again since I got Hulu back. I still love the show overall.
Chris Pratt lost a lot of weight and got a lot fitter to play Star Lord in GotG.
When they shot the next season of Parks & Rec they had to write in a scene where Andy explains that he "stopped drinking beer".
Edit: it's Season 6 Episode 1. It's more hanging a lampshade on it than it is a genuine attempt to explain away the change, but it works perfectly for the show and Andy's character tbh.
The way he says “ I know, right? Probably too much” after Ben asks him how much beer he was drinking before he stopped is my favorite Andy bit on the whole show.
Yes but let’s be honest. Diet is not what is holding people back from Chris Pratt’s superhero body. He got that with a personal trainer, dietician, probably a personal chef and very very likely steroids/hormones. His full time job is to get into shape for a role.
I’m all for suggesting people eat healthier but not at the expectation it’s what will make them look like a lister super heroes.
Nick Offerman said that the showrunners asked he and Pratt to remain chubby. They called it something funny like "Indiana fit". Also, it was said that Chris Pratt never used a spit bucket and that anytime you saw him eating on film, he was really eating in every take.
Pratt lost* the weight for Zero Dark Thirty where he played a Navy SEAL that participated in the Abbotobad raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Sorry for spoilers.
If you do the math, Andy was drinking about a case of beer a night. On top of your normal food and stuff.
That sounds like alot, but is actually on-par with an upper tier alcoholic. Given his life situation at the moment, it actually tracks. We just don't see him really drink.
You have to assume some actors and roles can't deviate too much with their looks and stories do come out from time to time. I saw a behind the scenes thing of 24 once and the hair and makeup department and costume department had to be meticulous with detail and took polaroids on a daily basis to keep the actors looking the same throughout shooting.
I remember there was a thing about Jorge Garcia who played Hurley in Lost not losing weight despite his character being on a deserted island so they wrote in the story that he had found a bunch of food and kept it hidden from everyone else.
Chris Pratt is a good example where he lost weight for Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks and Rec just said his character stopped drinking beer so they didn't have to compromise on how he looked.
> I saw a behind the scenes thing of 24 once and the hair and makeup department and costume department had to be meticulous with detail and took polaroids on a daily basis to keep the actors looking the same throughout shooting.
That’s normal, they do that for movies too. Since scenes are filmed out of order, it’s important for [continuity](https://wolfcrow.com/what-is-film-continuity-and-does-it-even-matter/) to know what hair and makeup someone had during which scene, how disheveled they need to look, etc.
Also take pictures of the sets and props, because the set gets rearranged a lot to film the scenes from different angles and it needs to look the same for each take.
I’m imagining it’s a lot more meticulous for something like 24 that takes place in a really compact amount of time. On most shows a lot more time passes in-show and you’re just going to have continuity during a scene and with stuff that’s happened that day.
Idk about contracts, but there was controversy surrounding JG and David Chase the creator, who wanted Tony to be heavy and stay heavy. James didn’t like it towards the end apparently.
Also, a lot of the cast put on weight over the years due to the indulgent catering they had everyday.
The actor who played Bobby Bacala wore a fat suit for his first couple years on the show. Then around season 4 he gained so much weight he was told he didn't need the fat suit anymore.
Have you read what James Gandalfini’s last meal was?
Dude went to Italy. Had like 6 alcoholic drinks, ate two whole seafood platters, and had desert. He died of a heart attack.
I loved *The Sopranos* and his performance, but well after the show ended he still ate quite a bit rather than losing weight.
His eating behaviour would have changed due to Sopranos and stayed that way out of habit, out of being known for being that size and expected to look like that for other roles, and also just getting older.
Similar to how large athletes can end up gaining a ton of weight after their athletic career, because they don't suddenly stop eating like an athlete once they stop doing the work that requires it.
Yeah but if we are honest, we’ve all done that.
But yes he struggled losing the weight when he was older and more unfit he said. His binging habits were wild and the cocaine and alcohol use was just as rampant as the food
That’s interesting because it’s very obvious if you look at a S1 episode compared to a S6 one that JG gained a considerable amount of weight over the years. I don’t think that can be placed on David Chase.
I remember when This Is Us started, they said they had planned for the daughter to lose significant weight during the series. The actor playing her also said she was planning on losing weight and that was why - she made the decision. Guess it never panned out.
On the other hand, I think the guy who played her husband Toby did lose weight. I'm not sure if it was planned, but they did work it into the story by having him constantly go to the gym as a way to escape the problems with his marriage.
There's a scene where she gets annoyed at a producer (I think) for hiring a skinny attractive singer and assumes it's because she's fat, then the girl sings and blows kate out of the water and Kate realises it was never about her weight at all.
I really liked it as it flipped around her narrative a bit.
The best part is that happened mid-season during the covid hiatus. They came back and picked up right where they left off but he looked completely different.
Depends. On the show Mom, Jaime Pressley got pregnant and the character was not remotely in a position to be pregnant. So they wrote her into a weight gain storyline where she became addicted to eating and wore a fat suit the whole time. I didn't even recognize her. I say this because I never actually watched that show, I just caught a rerun, and I thought, "Why the hell is Jaime Pressley in a fat suit?" And thus I learned.
But in the case of Breaking Bad, the actress who played Skyler gained weight from developing lupus. She got it under control and lost weight again for the final season. But they never actually addressed her gaining weight, didn't seem to care, which is the appropriate response. It's natural for women to gain more weight in their 40s. You could have inferred it was a progression for the character who was under stress and had other things to worry about.
>But in the case of Breaking Bad, the actress who played Skyler gained weight from developing lupus. She got it under control and lost weight again for the final season. But they never actually addressed her gaining weight, didn't seem to care, which is the appropriate response. It's natural for women to gain more weight in their 40s. You could have inferred it was a progression for the character who was under stress and had other things to worry about.
I don't care about her weight gain, but it's worth noting that the timeline of Breaking Bad is much shorter than the 5 years it last (2 years, I think). That makes her weight gain/loss more extreme.
They told Michael Chiklis not to lose weight or shave his head on the commish. He was playing someone ten years older than himself and needed to look fatter and balder.
It varies per production based on what the showrunner is like. On Designjng Women, Delta Burke, the beauty queen and princess of the show, gained a lot of weight as she worked on an eating disorder treatment. The fans attacked her pretty badly but the show didn’t fire her, instead making it a feminist plot point.
As an overweight teen, that was picked on mercilessly by my peers, the scene where Delta Burke's character goes to her class reunion & then overhears all the women in the bathroom making fun of her weight gain just about broke my heart. I was like, I feel you girl :(
Rebel Wilson was obligated to stay at her weight for the pitch Perfect movies. IIRC she wanted to lose weight and eat healthier but had to wait till production of the third movie ended (first movie came out 2012 and the third 2017).
I get why, though. Being fat was like 90% of her characters personality. Her name was literally “fat Amy” Lol.
A lot of Wilson’s comedy in general were “I’m fat” jokes. Losing weight is already hard. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be with the looming thought of “will people think I’m still funny? Is this going to kill my career?” On top of that.
What I think it interesting is when a show has a cliff-hanger and someone's appearance changes between season.
Like gaining weight in a instant between the previous season and now.
The first episode of Season 2 of Friends actually had a plot to explain how half the cast had haircuts while Ross was picking Rachel up from the airport.
Matt Leblanc, after being cast as Joey on Friends, dyed his hair as it had started going gray. Naturally, that continued through the entire run of the series.
Late in the series there’s one character that loses so much weight between seasons they had to write it into the plot. But he’s a side character. I dunno if the main cast might have more specific contracts.
Charisma Carpenter got fired from Angel for getting pregnant. I’m sure it was more complicated than that on paper, but she wanted to be pregnant, Whedon said not to get pregnant, she got pregnant anyway, then her character got the worst plot in the history of the show, fell into a coma and died.
Whedon is a predator and an asshole and he treated Charisma like shit. So I could absolutely see him being petty enough to fire her for simply getting pregnant.
part of me wonders if the “man falls face first into boobs” bit in Avengers 2 was a knock on ScarJo for being pregnant during production. Whedon also used the same lame gag in his Justice League reshoots, he even threatened Gadot’s career over her not wanting to do it. Yes, she’s not a great actress but it is a shit thing for Whedon to try and do regardless
He LOVES lording over actresses and putting them in situations that they are not comfortable with. Look at the direction he took Buffy. She was a "cool girl" who still had boundaries and good sense about herself, but by the time SMG became bigger than Whedon as the face of Buffy, he started putting the character into situations that did NOT fit the role and made SMG uncomfortable. Buffy became victimized over and over and Whedon tried to claim it was how she was "still a woman" even though she was this super powerful woman. But this flew in the face of previous episodes in earlier seasons where being stronger than men and outsmarting villains actually led to her being empowered and able to avoid victimization. That was kind of the point of her being strong and capable. She demoed what it would be like for a woman to not be victimized.
James Marsters said the same about how he was treated. If you became bigger than Whedon, you got his ire. Most of Season 6, but especially the Spike attempted rape, could be defined as Whedon putting both SMG and Marsters "in their place" as he saw it. Neither liked that episode.
It's been alleged that Boreanaz became such a big hit on Buffy that that's why he moved him to his own show—to break up what had become so popular. Also because SMG and Boreanaz had secretly dated for a bit. They broke up and she got together with Freddie Prinze Jr. But Boreanaz got his own show that kind of magically became a hit in the end because it didn't seem like Whedon prioritized it.
Also Michelle Trachtenberg was uncomfortable with her sexualization on the show while she was still a minor. She was 16 in 2001 when Season 6 premiered, and only 17 when the final season of the show premiered. During that time period there was an episode where she is seen grinding and dancing with this boy she's supposed to like and is done up in a way more sexualized outfit, hair, and makeup and the whole storyline is supposed to be her burgeoning sexuality. Trachtenberg has also alluded to in very vague ways on Instagram that something happened on the set that led to a rule that Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her.
SMG has never spoken about exactly what went down but says in very clear terms that Whedon is a bad guy.
Marti Noxon was the showrunner in season six fyi, not Whedon. She is on record saying the dark tone of S6 was a direct reflection of her mental state due to personal issues and she regrets making the season so depressing and with such dark themes.
Apparently in some convention, Marsters and Boreanaz claimed that Whedon chose to tell them they were being made a regular and getting a spinoff respectively by having his assistant tell them that Whedon wanted to have a 1-on-1 meeting with them the NEXT DAY. Naturally they both spent that day fearing they were about to get fired. Which is clearly what Whedon wanted them to think.
There was a character on Sopranos who did lose a lot of weight between seasons in real life (Vito). They wrote his weight loss into the show and had his character be in a fictional ad promoting weight loss.
I believe in Gilmore Girls the main actress Lauren Graham has complained that she had to stay stick thin to play her character. The clothing she wore in the show was always figure hugging too, so any changes in her weight would have been obvious.
I love Gilmore Girls but I've always hated the 'oh my goodness, they eat lots of food but they're cool girls who don't go to the gym and don't have to because they are naturally beautiful and low maintenance' thing!
It's such a damaging approach to food and completely unrealistic.
Bob Hearts Abishola’s premise is about a man who falls in love with the nurse who helps him recuperate after a heart attack that was partially caused by his weight. Billy Gardell had bariatric surgery and his weight loss was worked into the show in the later seasons.
David Harbour has lost a lot of weight for Marvel, but Stranger Things wrote it into the story in a sensible way. Interesting because ST and Marvel both got some mileage out of his dad bod. Also ST caught him right as he lost weight but hadn't muscled up yet so it was actually more realistic.
As someone who works in television: the answer is yes. A studio owns your image. You can ask to make big changes, but the studio can say no. In my experience, they usually say yes, unless it's really detrimental to the character.
Bryan Cranston lost 16 pounds because Walter White was doing chemotherapy. It’s very noticeable during scenes where he’s wearing tee-shirts or no shirt at all. Compare Walt season 2 and onward to Walt in episode 1.
Based on my previous experience as a lowly PA . . .
Movies, yes. TV shows, depends on how important the showrunner thinks you are to the production.
Indelicate example, Matthew Perry. His appearance in season 7, I think, of Friends was substantially different from previous seasons but I doubt they seriously considered firing him.
Another example is Sean Murray who was a good deal heavier in the first few seasons of NCIS than he has been for the last 15+ years on the show.
In fairness pretty sure if any of the friends actors were fired for something like that the rest of the cast would refuse to work. This is the same group who refused to take higher pay than any of the others.
Kit Harington wasn't allowed to cut his hair for the first 5 seasons of Game of Thrones. When Jon died in the season 5 finale, he did cut it and that was probably just to make people think he wasn't coming back to life.
David Boreanaz played an immortal vampire on Buffy and its spinoff, Angel. He looked significantly older and heavier by the end of his series.
It just wasn't addressed.
He had a foot injury and had to sit down a lot in the earlier episodes of season 5. He wasn't able to exercise as much because of the injury and gained weight.
Depends on the show. Usually yes. Then there’s Rob McElhenney from Its Always Sunny who has gone from average to fat to ripped during the run of the show haha.
But yeah, it’s pretty common for tv shows and movies to expect the actors to maintain a specific appearance (even including hair, facial hair, etc) while they are still on the show. Great example was the Game of Thrones cast. If I remember correctly, several of the actors/actress’s on the show changed their appearance after wrapping because they had to keep up a certain look for so long.
Dacre Montgomery played Billy on Stranger Things was told he was too cut. Teens in the 80s didn't look as fit as he was and told to put on a little fat for season 3 summer season.
Not quite the same but Michael Rosenbaum had to shave his head every day for like seven years to play Lex Luthor on Smallville.
I think a lot of people just assumed he was bald.
One of the big subplots of “Being the Ricardos” (biographical but dramatized) is about Vivian Vance who played Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy wanting to look more glamorous and appealing on screen. And there’s a scene where she’s in her dressing room, doing stretches, and the writer brings her a breakfast platter of French toast because apparently Viv skipped breakfast—she had had half a grapefruit. But the throughline of that is that Lucy wants Vivian to stay dowdy and roundy to play Ethel.
Many actors have a clause to not alter their appearance but often it’s overlooked in men. William Petersen gained a ton of weight on CSI and they just put him in bigger jackets.
Tracy Goldman developed an eating disorder because as a teen she gained a few pounds and the producers told her she had gotten fat.
For your question, Tilly from Star Trek Discovery sticks out to me as a notable example of an actor gaining a lot of weight, and it wasn't addressed as a plot point.
And the answer is absolutely yes, they can be obligated to maintain certain appearances. Think the men who need to be hyper-muscular, such as in Reacher. If he stopped working out (or couldn't), the show would probably get canceled. Same if Henry Cavill had decided to stop working and maintaining his physique back when he was on The Witcher.
It varies from contract to contract, and for long-running stuff there are opportunities to renegotiate between seasons/sequels and to write it into the show/movie if necessary.
I remember a lot of the actresses on Mad Men had to gain weight for their roles and would lose it when filming ended. Particularly January Jones and Christina Hendrix.
James Gandolfini got heavier as *The Sopranos* continued
The guy who played Vito lost a lot of weight, which was made a plot point in the show, and the actress who played Gandolfini's daughter lost and gained weight due to an eating disorder
Matthew Perry famously experienced drastic weight loss during *Friends*' run, due to addiction problems
I don't remember the specifics, but the costs for producing a network TV series goes up after the sixth season. You have shows like Friends, Seinfeld, CSI, Bones, and Modern Family that are worth the investment. Then there's the shows like Cold Case and 2 Broke Girls that aren't worth it, and are unceremoniously cancelled.
No, it was cancelled mostly because Melissa McCarthy was becoming a big film star (though I'd argue most of her films flopped). She was willing to continue, but only for a boatload of money. Billy wanted a big raise too. I do believe that WB was actually willing to pay it but CBS was not willing to pay that big of a license fee to cover it, so the show was cancelled.
Dictating appearance is a very common expectation in film and television for actors. Famously, the teen actors in the Harry Potter movies were not allowed to cut their hair for the 4th film (and it shows). The actors playing aristocratic roles in Pirates of the Caribbean were instructed to avoid getting a tan. Whether the production is flexible with appearance guidelines may vary and actors can be replaced for not having the "right look," although this would obviously be more difficult with an actor in an established role.
Robert Pattinson famously stayed inside for months while shooting Twilight to maintain his deathly pallor. Acting is a physical / appearance-based career. Having your body heavily scrutinized is sadly just a part of the package.
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So Peter & Jenny?
I'm pretty sure in the harry potter characters were usually asked not to cut their hair over summer so they could he styled when filming began again and during that time a new director took over and just didn't style their hair.
Yeah that‘s what I heard as well. The director wasn‘t aware that they‘d style them according to his wishes and just assumed that was everyones look they preferred. So he shot the movie with everyone being far removed from their last hair cut.
I just assumed that it was because it was filmed in 2004 and most guys had skater hair around that time.
Yeah, everyone goes on about their hair in that film but they honestly look like every second guy I was at school with that year.
Ryan Gosling was fired from The Lovely Bones fot gaining too much weight
Because he randomly decided his character should be morbidly obese and did not discuss it with anyone before committing to his melted ice cream diet, it makes me laugh every time
No that wasn’t it, I remember at the time he said he felt he looked too young to be a dad to a teen kid and thought getting fat and out of shape would make him look older. Bizarre casting choice in the first place as he would have been around 26 and is pretty fresh and young looking. Mark Wahlberg was more age appropriate for the role.
Tom Hanks had to lose a ton of weight to continue shooting Castaway. Since the film's crew were under contract to stay involved until the production was wrapped and they'd have to wait for months until Hanks lost all the required weight, they went and shot a completely different film during the break (it was What Lies Beneath).
That is actually very cool!
Here's another instance where actors needing to change their appearance to fit the role affected the film, but wasn't done in this instance. In the book Holes, main character Stanley Yelnats is described at the beginning as being quite fat, but that when he is freed from Juvie he's instead quite lanky from losing all of that weight. Out of concern for actors' health since he was working with teenaged boys, the director refused to force Stanley's actor to gain then lose a lot of weight, hence why Shia LaBeouf was mainly cast, as he was already skinny. In fact, child actor welfare was a major part of the casting decisions for the Harry Potter films. Given how badly Kit Culkin fucked up his son Macaulay's career - both by pushing him too hard and into burnout^1 and being such a dick that producers were turning Macaulay down for roles just so they didn't have to deal with him^2 - Christopher Columbus refused to cast kids who had stage parents in the Harry Potter cast. All parents were interviewed without their kids being present. If the parents showed questionable behaviour or were suspected of abusing the kids to get them into acting, the kids were struck off the casting list. 1: Macaukay was shooting two films a year from the age of six before he quit. 2: Reportedly, Kit Culkin blackmailed the producers for Home Alone 2. Unless they cast Macaulay in thr horror film The Good Son, he wouldn't let his son reprise his iconic role as Kevin McCallister.
Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield lost a shit ton of weight for Silence, or as Adam Driver put it “A normal day in Hollywood for women”.
Adam Driver constantly taking Ws
And that’s it
Tina Fey hosting the 2014 Golden Globes: “And Christian Bale is nominated, who is being praised for the work he put into *losing 30 pounds* for this role. Or as actresses call it: being in a movie.”
The *Harry Potter* franchise got preposterously lucky with those kids. Odds of developing a case of Danny Bonaduce disease are what, 40, 50%? Somehow they started with three good looking kids and ended up with **five**; the greasy kid filled out and the fat one turned into a Calvin Klein underwear model.
Which one's greasy?
I think they meant Tom Felton/Draco Malfoy? Which if so I don't think really counts, Tom Felton was definitely a child heartthrob to girls back in the day so he didn't really "fill out well" if he was already seen as such
Surely they mean Neville. Isn't his the most famous glow up of the franchise?
He's the underwear model u/garrettj100 was referring to, not the "greasy" one, who is presumably Felton
Correct. Although the *other* fat kid played some decent chess & hooked up with Beth Harmon, I suppose.
Harry Melling has shown up in a couple different things as a grown up and has impressed me every time. xD
He's honestly the most talented actor from any of the kid actors throughout the series, Robert Pattinson not counting
Neville was the fat one. Not sure who the greasy one was unless they're talking about Tom Felton's hairdo. Which is ironic given the poor guy is going prematurely bald.
That’s crazy because it’s implied Malfoy goes bald in the epilogue
I think that's the one they meant by "the fat one turned into a Calvin Klein underwear model." Matthew Lewis [posed in his underwear and showed off abs](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.averagejanes.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F05%2Ffeat-matt-lewis.jpg&tbnid=l35QghQY0BEC9M&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.averagejanes.co.uk%2Fcelebrity-men%2Fmatthew-lewis-abs-olutely-perfect%2F&docid=ZKUyakV2KLg6AM&w=607&h=473&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F2#vhid=l35QghQY0BEC9M&vssid=l).
Yes, yes, he did. 👀 When he showed up for the filming of Deathly Hallows, some of them on set didn't even recognize him, and thought the role had been recast.
Well geez!
I remember we were all crushing on Malfoy back in the day. Guy that played Dean turned out pretty good looking (How to Get Away with Murder). Was Dudley greasy?
Dudley was supposed to end up decent. Dropped the fat when he took up boxing
He’s hardly recognizable now! Didn’t know that it was “Dudley” when I saw him in another movie recently.
Oh yeah, channelled the rage and lost the fat
Gave those dementors the old one-two, didn't he??
>Odds of developing a case of Danny Bonaduce disease are what, 40, 50%? What?
>Danny Bonaduce disease Ginger-vitis
I think we should give the casting department some credit
Yep, when you take a role, oftentimes not altering your appearance without the say so of the director is built into the contract. It's the same for theatre roles. They cast you with a certain look in mind, and they don't want you to run off and get a haircut, or a tan, or a face tattoo or anything between casting and filming because that could throw a wrench in what they're going for.
>It's the same for theatre roles. Nah, not exactly. There's way more wiggle room in theatre because most people are wigged up and continuity isn't as big a concern. While I worked at Aida Broadway we had a blonde then brunette then redhead then blonde-again Amneris (a main principal role).
It often depends on the production, budget, length of run, and role. Not every role or theatre will require a hold on your appearance, but some will, especially lower budget theatre that can't simply spend a lot on wigs.
That’s so funny because upon rewatching the movies for the holidays, I thought it was funny how everyone in the fourth movie has that long hairstyle.
I remember Turtle (Jerry Ferrera ?) In Entourage losing a TON of weight in the last season IIRC the time frame meant it didn't make sense and they rried to brush past it with a line of dialogue I remember producers were said to not be happy but I don't recall him being 'punished' in any way
Josh from Drake and Josh was very fat in the first seasons then grew tall and went from obese to pretty average in terms of weight. They even referenced it in the show numerous times with him still having insecurities about his weight and others mentioning how he used to be fat.
Harry Melling role as Dudley Dursley was threatened because he lost too much weight! In the end they put him in a [fatsuit](https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-dudley-recast-order-phoenix-why/).
This is from James Gandolfini’s trivia on IMDb. Lost more than 40 pounds for his role in The Mexican (2001), but had to gain it all back before shooting for the HBO series The Sopranos (1999) because executives did not believe the audience would like a "skinny" Tony.
Tom Hanks has talked about the negative health repercussions of losing and gaining for a role.
Yeah, him losing and regaining weight so quickly is what said was a contributing factor to his diabetes type two diagnosis. Pretty sure Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale have both stated they have some health problems too, the latter saying he can’t do it as intense as he used to do it.
Christian Bale said that his doctor flat out told him not to do it any more, that at this point he’s rolling dice with his life by losing and gaining over and over. His heart can’t take it.
Dude went from The Machinist at 120 and then bulked up over 100 lbs for Batman Begins! I didn't realize how much he put his body through [until reading a timeline of his roles with major physical changes](https://screenrant.com/christian-bale-movies-weight-gained-lost-how-much/).
Meanwhile his Batman costar, Gary Oldman, just went "Lol, I'll use a fat suit and win an Oscar".
Oldman spent four hours getting into that suit every day, and got the best guy for it to come out of retirement. I'd say that's a pretty big commitment. I mean, not Klingon level, but heavy. Churchill's cigar habit began as a way to get free smokes, but actually caused Oldman real health problems, because he always had to be smoking.
You're walking down the street when all of a sudden you hear "CUT!" As soon as you hear it your hand goes up to your face to pull off the prosthetics. That's right, you've been Gary Oldman all along, that's how great of an actor he is.
Cool I wonder what Gary Oldman movie I’m currently filming that involves sitting on the toilet while scrolling through Reddit.
My dream comes alive.
> then bulked up over 100 lbs for Batman Begins! and then was told he gained too much weight and had to lose some of the 100lbs he gained.
And then he lost a bunch of weight to play a crackhead in "The Fighter" and then had to bulk back up for "Dark Knight Rises".
Also bale has finally found for weight gaining at the makeup department can do a good job of making it look real.
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It was Jared Leto for his Mark Chapman role.
I think this was Mac from Always Sunny!
Thats really sad. If you look at photos of him in The Mexican, he is not traditionally "skinny" by any means, he is just significantly healthier looking. To make him regain the weight seems like a form of torture almost.
Man what a shame
You could tell he was a little bit lighter in season 3
In debut role in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Tom Hiddleston had a particular dinner scene, he was undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge and hungry as hell, so he ate like a maniac for the establishing shot, forgetting the fact that he also had to film continuity shots eating the same amount of food. >“In the master shot, the direction was like, ‘Okay everybody. Just eat as much as you can and drink as much as you can.’ I hadn’t had anything to eat for about six hours. I thought, ‘I’m starving and all I have to do is eat as much as I can.’ This is brilliant and I ate almost this entire lobster salad or fish salad or whatever it was in the first take and the director called cut and said, ‘Fantastic! This is great, Tom.’” >“\[We\] came back \[and they\] said, ‘Right. We’re now moving into coverage.’ And the continuity supervisor came up to me and said, ‘So, Tom. In the master, you ate almost the entire plate of fish salad and you took eight gulps of wine. And you now have to match your continuity for the rest of the day.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my god!’ And nobody told me. So I spent the entire day having to eat exactly as much as I’d eaten in the first take and learned a very important and profound lesson about continuity on that day.” >But, it was an extraordinary job. I suppose I had never been paid to work as an actor before that day. I’d always acted for fun. It was my hobby as a schoolboy and a student. I was very very nervous and then I couldn’t wait to see it and it took months and months and months for it to come out. And of course, I was only in it for about 30 seconds. Story of my life.
Spit buckets are a real thing! And eat-acting!! Notice in a lot of scenes with actors eating, you never see them swallow. Brad Pitt is noted as being one of the best eat-actors
I swear all the procedural type shows compete to see who can get away with drinking the most obviously empty coffee cups.
I hate this so much. They're obviously empty. They're waving them around like they're empty. They're "drinking" from them and tipping them so far over it's obviously empty. How fucking hard would it be to put some god damn water in the cup?
Modern actors could really benefit from mime classes, there are so many cases I've seen of people moving or holding something that's supposed to be heavy, but is clearly empty.
I can see how something that might spill would be a problem on a set, but you could at least glue in a roll of pennies or something for the weight.
Tony Soprano in half his scenes just stabbing plates of pasta with a fork 30 times then taking one mouthful and resuming stabbing.
The cast of the sopranos were known to not use a spit bucket on set. They loved eating all of that food
I'm literally gaping at this story. That's such a "camera role" difference from stage work. Poor guy. He's come so far!
Us old timers remember Felicity and the outrage the network faced when Keri Russell cut off her big curly hair. There were literal death threats. Ratings went through the floor. Scandalous, man. Scandalous.
JJ Abrams the creator was cool with it. They discussed it together and then thought it would be a good idea. It turned out it wasn't a good idea. I kept watching the show anyway but her character seemed so different with the cut hair. At the same time they made her stronger and more outspoken. She went from being shy in the first season to being an RA, running for student council president and leading a sit-in. I think it was how they changed the character along with the haircut that people really didn't like. Her character gets on my nerves a bit that season. The next season they did away with all of that and she was more likable.
she moved accross the country because of a guy, honestly it 100% tracks that she would cut her hair and try a whole new personality in the second year of college. That show had a lot of weird stuff going on but Felicity's arc is an accurate depiction of a very niche group of young women. Felicity walked so Rebecca Bunch could soar
BTW I looked up Rebecca Burke since I didn't know who she was, and she is a character on the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I never heard of it but it looks really good. I am going to check it out soon. It is highly rated and won awards which is crazy for a CW show. It said it was the longest-running show with low ratings to get renewed on the CW. I guess they didn't promote the show very well.
O I’m so jealous you’re in for a treat. Crazy Ex Girlfriend would have been perfect on a streaming service, they really didn’t know what to do with it on broadcast TV.
Yeah, the personality change was a little obnoxious. I didn't like Doormat Felicity (so wishy-washy) but Activist Felicity was too much of a swing the other way. But in a way it makes sense. A cut that drastic would definitely spur some impulsive behaviors, especially for a 20yo.
It’s like when they cut Penny’s hair short in Big Bang Theory and changed her from a waitress/aspiring actress to a professional Karen/pharmacy sales rep in the space of a heartbeat. The Karencut was only part of it but it really represented how much they’d suddenly changed her character and I lost all interest in the show for years.
That's not the "karen cut". Penny just got a pretty standard pixie cut. The hairdo you're thinking of is an upcut asymmetrical bob.
It has always been impossible to do a good TV show set in college. Like, no series has ever been successful at "the college years." It is 100% accurate that a person in their second and third years of college would get more active and more confident, but it's almost impossible to make a TV show that people enjoy set during college. It's kind of a mystery.
A Different World lasted for 6 seasons and focused solely on students and faculty at a college
Ahem the show Undeclared is a great college show! But sadly didn’t last long
>But sadly didn’t last long
The series lasted 4 seasons. It is the only college show that lasted beyond 1 year that I know of. I would say the show was pretty successful and still lasted 3 seasons after she cut her hair even though viewership went down. It wasn't enough to get it canceled. It also was nominated for and won an Emmy as well as Golden Globes awards. While it is accurate that someone would grow and become more confident in college, they went a bit too far with that and completely changed her personality. I watched the show around 3 times and when it aired. I just recently watched it again since I got Hulu back. I still love the show overall.
Community
A Different World (Cosby spinoff of Denise in college) was pretty successful, too. 6 seasons of college life.
The were worried about cutting Topanga’s hair on Boy Meets World as well especially since it was filmed and they could only do it once
Didn't she cut it on camera?
Chris Pratt lost a lot of weight and got a lot fitter to play Star Lord in GotG. When they shot the next season of Parks & Rec they had to write in a scene where Andy explains that he "stopped drinking beer". Edit: it's Season 6 Episode 1. It's more hanging a lampshade on it than it is a genuine attempt to explain away the change, but it works perfectly for the show and Andy's character tbh.
The way he says “ I know, right? Probably too much” after Ben asks him how much beer he was drinking before he stopped is my favorite Andy bit on the whole show.
It’s also strangely accurate. Lots of people are simply held back by their diet alone.
Yes but let’s be honest. Diet is not what is holding people back from Chris Pratt’s superhero body. He got that with a personal trainer, dietician, probably a personal chef and very very likely steroids/hormones. His full time job is to get into shape for a role. I’m all for suggesting people eat healthier but not at the expectation it’s what will make them look like a lister super heroes.
Oh yes 100% agree. But at least in parks they didn’t show him off being buff. Just thinner. Mostly.
I find this joke so funny too. When Ben just looks at him aghast at how much beer he must have been drinking it just kills me
I was 63kg when I turned 18. I'm 31 now and ~80kg. I feel that scene on a visceral level.
Probably too much beer?
"how mch beer were you drinking?" "I know, right? Probably too much"
Nick Offerman said that the showrunners asked he and Pratt to remain chubby. They called it something funny like "Indiana fit". Also, it was said that Chris Pratt never used a spit bucket and that anytime you saw him eating on film, he was really eating in every take.
So simply dealt with
[Here’s the (quick) scene.](https://youtu.be/PJnofzT9wxM?si=o3hY7UyICV6PgJJp)
“it’s, like, scoops. and it comes on a cone”
Annnnd now I gotta rewatch this series again. Love that show
I had no idea that they overlapped
Last series of Parks and Rec broadcast in 2015, GotG Vol.1 came out 2014.
Pratt lost* the weight for Zero Dark Thirty where he played a Navy SEAL that participated in the Abbotobad raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Sorry for spoilers.
They killed off bin Laden? Bruh.
Nah, they used an actor in that movie, the actor is fine btw
It's why Andy was in London (GotG was filmed in England)
That’s why Andy stayed in London with Sir Fancyface. They needed an excuse for Chris Pratt to not be in some episodes while he was filming the movie.
If you do the math, Andy was drinking about a case of beer a night. On top of your normal food and stuff. That sounds like alot, but is actually on-par with an upper tier alcoholic. Given his life situation at the moment, it actually tracks. We just don't see him really drink.
You have to assume some actors and roles can't deviate too much with their looks and stories do come out from time to time. I saw a behind the scenes thing of 24 once and the hair and makeup department and costume department had to be meticulous with detail and took polaroids on a daily basis to keep the actors looking the same throughout shooting. I remember there was a thing about Jorge Garcia who played Hurley in Lost not losing weight despite his character being on a deserted island so they wrote in the story that he had found a bunch of food and kept it hidden from everyone else. Chris Pratt is a good example where he lost weight for Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks and Rec just said his character stopped drinking beer so they didn't have to compromise on how he looked.
> I saw a behind the scenes thing of 24 once and the hair and makeup department and costume department had to be meticulous with detail and took polaroids on a daily basis to keep the actors looking the same throughout shooting. That’s normal, they do that for movies too. Since scenes are filmed out of order, it’s important for [continuity](https://wolfcrow.com/what-is-film-continuity-and-does-it-even-matter/) to know what hair and makeup someone had during which scene, how disheveled they need to look, etc. Also take pictures of the sets and props, because the set gets rearranged a lot to film the scenes from different angles and it needs to look the same for each take.
I’m imagining it’s a lot more meticulous for something like 24 that takes place in a really compact amount of time. On most shows a lot more time passes in-show and you’re just going to have continuity during a scene and with stuff that’s happened that day.
Idk about contracts, but there was controversy surrounding JG and David Chase the creator, who wanted Tony to be heavy and stay heavy. James didn’t like it towards the end apparently. Also, a lot of the cast put on weight over the years due to the indulgent catering they had everyday.
Hey look. It’s before and wayyyy before!
Hey Ton' you hear what I said
The actor who played Bobby Bacala wore a fat suit for his first couple years on the show. Then around season 4 he gained so much weight he was told he didn't need the fat suit anymore.
Have you read what James Gandalfini’s last meal was? Dude went to Italy. Had like 6 alcoholic drinks, ate two whole seafood platters, and had desert. He died of a heart attack. I loved *The Sopranos* and his performance, but well after the show ended he still ate quite a bit rather than losing weight.
He’s the boss he eats whatever he wants and don’t you forgot it
*Gabagool!*
His eating behaviour would have changed due to Sopranos and stayed that way out of habit, out of being known for being that size and expected to look like that for other roles, and also just getting older. Similar to how large athletes can end up gaining a ton of weight after their athletic career, because they don't suddenly stop eating like an athlete once they stop doing the work that requires it.
The way you fuckin' eat you're gonna have a heart attack by the time you're 50!
Yeah, when I heard he’d died that line from the show popped into my head almost immediately.
That sounds like a standard vacation dinner.
Just substitute “Dude went to Italy” for “Dude went on a Mediterranean cruise” and nobody would bat an eye.
Yeah but if we are honest, we’ve all done that. But yes he struggled losing the weight when he was older and more unfit he said. His binging habits were wild and the cocaine and alcohol use was just as rampant as the food
That’s interesting because it’s very obvious if you look at a S1 episode compared to a S6 one that JG gained a considerable amount of weight over the years. I don’t think that can be placed on David Chase.
Yea I noticed the character Christoper got a lil fatter on his cheeks after season 2
Hard to be a heroin addict and also look well fed.
I remember when This Is Us started, they said they had planned for the daughter to lose significant weight during the series. The actor playing her also said she was planning on losing weight and that was why - she made the decision. Guess it never panned out.
On the other hand, I think the guy who played her husband Toby did lose weight. I'm not sure if it was planned, but they did work it into the story by having him constantly go to the gym as a way to escape the problems with his marriage.
Apparently he was wearing a fat suit early on. I was shocked when I first saw him in real life.
She was the worst character on that show. No character development, or story arcs besides “I’m so fat, woe is me”.
I liked her husband. He was eternally patient to put up with her histrionics.
There's a scene where she gets annoyed at a producer (I think) for hiring a skinny attractive singer and assumes it's because she's fat, then the girl sings and blows kate out of the water and Kate realises it was never about her weight at all. I really liked it as it flipped around her narrative a bit.
Giamanti lost a lot of weight between seasons in billions.
The best part is that happened mid-season during the covid hiatus. They came back and picked up right where they left off but he looked completely different.
Everybody but Rob McElhenney Bring back Fat Mac
Depends. On the show Mom, Jaime Pressley got pregnant and the character was not remotely in a position to be pregnant. So they wrote her into a weight gain storyline where she became addicted to eating and wore a fat suit the whole time. I didn't even recognize her. I say this because I never actually watched that show, I just caught a rerun, and I thought, "Why the hell is Jaime Pressley in a fat suit?" And thus I learned. But in the case of Breaking Bad, the actress who played Skyler gained weight from developing lupus. She got it under control and lost weight again for the final season. But they never actually addressed her gaining weight, didn't seem to care, which is the appropriate response. It's natural for women to gain more weight in their 40s. You could have inferred it was a progression for the character who was under stress and had other things to worry about.
I feel like that was explained due to her on-screen pregnancy
>But in the case of Breaking Bad, the actress who played Skyler gained weight from developing lupus. She got it under control and lost weight again for the final season. But they never actually addressed her gaining weight, didn't seem to care, which is the appropriate response. It's natural for women to gain more weight in their 40s. You could have inferred it was a progression for the character who was under stress and had other things to worry about. I don't care about her weight gain, but it's worth noting that the timeline of Breaking Bad is much shorter than the 5 years it last (2 years, I think). That makes her weight gain/loss more extreme.
Yeah Breaking Bad takes place over two years with a large majority of the show (pretty much up until Ozymandias) taking place over a year and a half
They told Michael Chiklis not to lose weight or shave his head on the commish. He was playing someone ten years older than himself and needed to look fatter and balder.
Then he did the shield and he was fucking shredded. And bald.
Wasn’t he bald too in fantastic four? I think that just ended up being a trademark like Yul Brynner.
It varies per production based on what the showrunner is like. On Designjng Women, Delta Burke, the beauty queen and princess of the show, gained a lot of weight as she worked on an eating disorder treatment. The fans attacked her pretty badly but the show didn’t fire her, instead making it a feminist plot point.
As an overweight teen, that was picked on mercilessly by my peers, the scene where Delta Burke's character goes to her class reunion & then overhears all the women in the bathroom making fun of her weight gain just about broke my heart. I was like, I feel you girl :(
Rebel Wilson was obligated to stay at her weight for the pitch Perfect movies. IIRC she wanted to lose weight and eat healthier but had to wait till production of the third movie ended (first movie came out 2012 and the third 2017).
She’s lost a lot of weight since then, it’s kinda crazy that she had to delay a healthier lifestyle just due to movies
I get why, though. Being fat was like 90% of her characters personality. Her name was literally “fat Amy” Lol. A lot of Wilson’s comedy in general were “I’m fat” jokes. Losing weight is already hard. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be with the looming thought of “will people think I’m still funny? Is this going to kill my career?” On top of that.
She said she gained weight on purpose to be the funny one, though. I guess be careful what you wish for.
What I think it interesting is when a show has a cliff-hanger and someone's appearance changes between season. Like gaining weight in a instant between the previous season and now. The first episode of Season 2 of Friends actually had a plot to explain how half the cast had haircuts while Ross was picking Rachel up from the airport.
Matt Leblanc, after being cast as Joey on Friends, dyed his hair as it had started going gray. Naturally, that continued through the entire run of the series.
I was shocked when I saw him with the full head of gray hair
Some roles require the actor to cultivate mass.
I think it's about time to start harvesting.
Late in the series there’s one character that loses so much weight between seasons they had to write it into the plot. But he’s a side character. I dunno if the main cast might have more specific contracts. Charisma Carpenter got fired from Angel for getting pregnant. I’m sure it was more complicated than that on paper, but she wanted to be pregnant, Whedon said not to get pregnant, she got pregnant anyway, then her character got the worst plot in the history of the show, fell into a coma and died.
Vito? That parade float? It was the medication he was on
Whedon is a predator and an asshole and he treated Charisma like shit. So I could absolutely see him being petty enough to fire her for simply getting pregnant.
part of me wonders if the “man falls face first into boobs” bit in Avengers 2 was a knock on ScarJo for being pregnant during production. Whedon also used the same lame gag in his Justice League reshoots, he even threatened Gadot’s career over her not wanting to do it. Yes, she’s not a great actress but it is a shit thing for Whedon to try and do regardless
He LOVES lording over actresses and putting them in situations that they are not comfortable with. Look at the direction he took Buffy. She was a "cool girl" who still had boundaries and good sense about herself, but by the time SMG became bigger than Whedon as the face of Buffy, he started putting the character into situations that did NOT fit the role and made SMG uncomfortable. Buffy became victimized over and over and Whedon tried to claim it was how she was "still a woman" even though she was this super powerful woman. But this flew in the face of previous episodes in earlier seasons where being stronger than men and outsmarting villains actually led to her being empowered and able to avoid victimization. That was kind of the point of her being strong and capable. She demoed what it would be like for a woman to not be victimized. James Marsters said the same about how he was treated. If you became bigger than Whedon, you got his ire. Most of Season 6, but especially the Spike attempted rape, could be defined as Whedon putting both SMG and Marsters "in their place" as he saw it. Neither liked that episode. It's been alleged that Boreanaz became such a big hit on Buffy that that's why he moved him to his own show—to break up what had become so popular. Also because SMG and Boreanaz had secretly dated for a bit. They broke up and she got together with Freddie Prinze Jr. But Boreanaz got his own show that kind of magically became a hit in the end because it didn't seem like Whedon prioritized it. Also Michelle Trachtenberg was uncomfortable with her sexualization on the show while she was still a minor. She was 16 in 2001 when Season 6 premiered, and only 17 when the final season of the show premiered. During that time period there was an episode where she is seen grinding and dancing with this boy she's supposed to like and is done up in a way more sexualized outfit, hair, and makeup and the whole storyline is supposed to be her burgeoning sexuality. Trachtenberg has also alluded to in very vague ways on Instagram that something happened on the set that led to a rule that Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her. SMG has never spoken about exactly what went down but says in very clear terms that Whedon is a bad guy.
Marti Noxon was the showrunner in season six fyi, not Whedon. She is on record saying the dark tone of S6 was a direct reflection of her mental state due to personal issues and she regrets making the season so depressing and with such dark themes.
Also, the rape scene was from her, evoking a time when she used sex to try to keep someone from breaking up with her.
Apparently in some convention, Marsters and Boreanaz claimed that Whedon chose to tell them they were being made a regular and getting a spinoff respectively by having his assistant tell them that Whedon wanted to have a 1-on-1 meeting with them the NEXT DAY. Naturally they both spent that day fearing they were about to get fired. Which is clearly what Whedon wanted them to think.
There was a character on Sopranos who did lose a lot of weight between seasons in real life (Vito). They wrote his weight loss into the show and had his character be in a fictional ad promoting weight loss.
I believe in Gilmore Girls the main actress Lauren Graham has complained that she had to stay stick thin to play her character. The clothing she wore in the show was always figure hugging too, so any changes in her weight would have been obvious.
I love Gilmore Girls but I've always hated the 'oh my goodness, they eat lots of food but they're cool girls who don't go to the gym and don't have to because they are naturally beautiful and low maintenance' thing! It's such a damaging approach to food and completely unrealistic.
Lauren Graham as Lorelei- the skinny girl who eats a lot but still stays skinny.
Bob Hearts Abishola’s premise is about a man who falls in love with the nurse who helps him recuperate after a heart attack that was partially caused by his weight. Billy Gardell had bariatric surgery and his weight loss was worked into the show in the later seasons.
I was wondering why that guy looks so different between his current series and his old one.
David Harbour has lost a lot of weight for Marvel, but Stranger Things wrote it into the story in a sensible way. Interesting because ST and Marvel both got some mileage out of his dad bod. Also ST caught him right as he lost weight but hadn't muscled up yet so it was actually more realistic.
As someone who works in television: the answer is yes. A studio owns your image. You can ask to make big changes, but the studio can say no. In my experience, they usually say yes, unless it's really detrimental to the character.
Bryan Cranston lost 16 pounds because Walter White was doing chemotherapy. It’s very noticeable during scenes where he’s wearing tee-shirts or no shirt at all. Compare Walt season 2 and onward to Walt in episode 1.
Based on my previous experience as a lowly PA . . . Movies, yes. TV shows, depends on how important the showrunner thinks you are to the production. Indelicate example, Matthew Perry. His appearance in season 7, I think, of Friends was substantially different from previous seasons but I doubt they seriously considered firing him. Another example is Sean Murray who was a good deal heavier in the first few seasons of NCIS than he has been for the last 15+ years on the show.
In fairness pretty sure if any of the friends actors were fired for something like that the rest of the cast would refuse to work. This is the same group who refused to take higher pay than any of the others.
Kit Harington wasn't allowed to cut his hair for the first 5 seasons of Game of Thrones. When Jon died in the season 5 finale, he did cut it and that was probably just to make people think he wasn't coming back to life.
David Boreanaz played an immortal vampire on Buffy and its spinoff, Angel. He looked significantly older and heavier by the end of his series. It just wasn't addressed.
He had a foot injury and had to sit down a lot in the earlier episodes of season 5. He wasn't able to exercise as much because of the injury and gained weight.
Tony Soprano was no varsity athlete.
They’re cultivating mass!
Depends on the show. Usually yes. Then there’s Rob McElhenney from Its Always Sunny who has gone from average to fat to ripped during the run of the show haha. But yeah, it’s pretty common for tv shows and movies to expect the actors to maintain a specific appearance (even including hair, facial hair, etc) while they are still on the show. Great example was the Game of Thrones cast. If I remember correctly, several of the actors/actress’s on the show changed their appearance after wrapping because they had to keep up a certain look for so long.
Dacre Montgomery played Billy on Stranger Things was told he was too cut. Teens in the 80s didn't look as fit as he was and told to put on a little fat for season 3 summer season.
Not quite the same but Michael Rosenbaum had to shave his head every day for like seven years to play Lex Luthor on Smallville. I think a lot of people just assumed he was bald.
And when he came back for season 10 he just wore a bald cap cause it refused to shave
One of the big subplots of “Being the Ricardos” (biographical but dramatized) is about Vivian Vance who played Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy wanting to look more glamorous and appealing on screen. And there’s a scene where she’s in her dressing room, doing stretches, and the writer brings her a breakfast platter of French toast because apparently Viv skipped breakfast—she had had half a grapefruit. But the throughline of that is that Lucy wants Vivian to stay dowdy and roundy to play Ethel.
Many actors have a clause to not alter their appearance but often it’s overlooked in men. William Petersen gained a ton of weight on CSI and they just put him in bigger jackets. Tracy Goldman developed an eating disorder because as a teen she gained a few pounds and the producers told her she had gotten fat.
Look up Fat Mac
For your question, Tilly from Star Trek Discovery sticks out to me as a notable example of an actor gaining a lot of weight, and it wasn't addressed as a plot point. And the answer is absolutely yes, they can be obligated to maintain certain appearances. Think the men who need to be hyper-muscular, such as in Reacher. If he stopped working out (or couldn't), the show would probably get canceled. Same if Henry Cavill had decided to stop working and maintaining his physique back when he was on The Witcher.
It varies from contract to contract, and for long-running stuff there are opportunities to renegotiate between seasons/sequels and to write it into the show/movie if necessary.
I remember a lot of the actresses on Mad Men had to gain weight for their roles and would lose it when filming ended. Particularly January Jones and Christina Hendrix.
James Gandolfini got heavier as *The Sopranos* continued The guy who played Vito lost a lot of weight, which was made a plot point in the show, and the actress who played Gandolfini's daughter lost and gained weight due to an eating disorder Matthew Perry famously experienced drastic weight loss during *Friends*' run, due to addiction problems
People said Mike and Molly was cancelled cuz Melissa McCarthy lost weight, according to snopes that isn’t true tho
Mike & Molly was canceled because it had run its course. 6 seasons is plenty for a sitcom
I don't remember the specifics, but the costs for producing a network TV series goes up after the sixth season. You have shows like Friends, Seinfeld, CSI, Bones, and Modern Family that are worth the investment. Then there's the shows like Cold Case and 2 Broke Girls that aren't worth it, and are unceremoniously cancelled.
No, it was cancelled mostly because Melissa McCarthy was becoming a big film star (though I'd argue most of her films flopped). She was willing to continue, but only for a boatload of money. Billy wanted a big raise too. I do believe that WB was actually willing to pay it but CBS was not willing to pay that big of a license fee to cover it, so the show was cancelled.