General Article Actors at all levels face pressure to change their appearance,...

Topic Selected: Body Image Book Volume: 375
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Actors at all levels face pressure to change their appearance, not just stars like Doctor Who's Jodie Whittaker

Jodie Whittaker. lev radin/Shutterstock

Sara Reimers, Royal Holloway

Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker has become the latest actor to reveal how she has faced pressure to change her appearance. In a podcast, Whittaker disclosed that early in her career she was told to have a line on her forehead filled and was encouraged to wax her upper lip.

This is not a one-off occurrence, many other actors have spoken of how they have also experienced pressure to make changes to their bodies. In 2015, the late Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher joked that for her role in Episode VII – The Force Awakens the studio bosses didn’t “want to hire all of me – only about three-quarters”. Revealing that she had been asked to lose more than 35lb to reprise the role of Princess Leia, Fisher spoke of her frustration at working “in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance...

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