Emma Thompson reveals Hollywood’s “anorexia problem”

Actor recalls story of how a former co-star was asked to lose weight

British actor Emma Thompson has finally opened up about her personal battle with anorexia and how common the eating disorder is in the showbiz industry, reported Vogue magazine. The Love Actually star described her own experience as “terrible” and also called out the French fashion industry for not doing more to exclude extremely thin models from the catwalk.

But before that, Emma laid bare the acting industry’s issues.  “The anorexia… there are so many kids, girls and boys now and female actors who are very, very thin into their thirties. They simply don’t eat. They don’t eat,” she told Swedish chat show Skavlan. “Sometimes, there are just some subjects that you absolutely have to make noise about because it’s so tedious and it’s gone on and on.”



Emma then shed light on her own experience on the set of a particular film Brideshead Revisited in 2008 – in which she appeared alongside fellow actors Felicity Jones, Hayley Atwell and Greta Scacchi. “There was a wonderful actress in a film I did called Brideshead Revisited and the producer said to her, ‘Would you lose some weight?’ But she was exquisite and I said to them, ‘If you speak to her about this again on any level, I will leave this picture. You are never to do that’.”

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