Workaholics star Jillian Bell on whether weight held her back in Hollywood
Landing her first lead role has been a dream come true for Brittany Runs A Marathon star Jillian Bell.
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Hollywood actor Jillian Bell wonders if she’d be getting more roles if she were thinner.
The comedian concedes her appearance until now has seen her land roles as the “odd bird” rather than the leading lady.
“I am sure I wondered if things would be different or if I’d be up for different roles because of it,” Bell said when asked if she’d felt pressure to conform to beauty ideals of a size zero to four. “But I also thought, hopefully if I bring something to the table, people will see that and the right roles will come my way and so far I have gotten to play a lot of really fun, nuanced roles, really odd ladies. I like playing odd birds.”
Bell is best known for hit TV series Workaholics and Eastbound and Down and for support roles in flicks including 22 Jump Street, Fist Fight and Rough Night.
She is in Sydney for the first time to promote her debut lead role in Brittany Runs A Marathon, about which actor Lena Dunham recently tweeted. “Brittany Runs A Marathon is the kind of movie nobody makes anymore even though everybody should – no big hook except the most important one, which is that it’s really f***ing good. Laughed, wept, felt inspired. GO!”
Bell plays unhealthy and overweight New Yorker Brittany Forgler in the movie about her journey to lose weight and run her first marathon.
“It is a drama and a comedy and shows a woman and the real struggles that come along with being a woman who is not a size zero in our society,” Bell explained. “I would like to see more movies about that, we are starting to have more now, which is wonderful. For a long time, movie stars were sizes zero to four so it is nice to be the lead of this movie.”
Directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo, Brittany Runs A Marathon also stars Utkarsh Ambudkar, Micah Stock, Michaela Watkins and Lil Rel Howery.
“I think this movie switches it up,” she said. “It takes people that are sidekick characters and it fully layers them in ways that they are not often layered in film or TV. Usually this character that I am playing, at the beginning of the film, she comes in and motivates the lead to go for her dreams and then say something funny, grab a bagel and head out and that is the whole role. But this really went deep and showed who she is and showed where there is joy in her pain and pain in her joy.”
* Brittany Runs A Marathon is in cinemas from Thursday and on Amazon Prime from November 15.
Originally published as Workaholics star Jillian Bell on whether weight held her back in Hollywood