Celeste Barber on body positivity and new show Wellmania

The 40-year-old gained celebrity status when she started to photograph herself side-by-side mimicking celebrity and influencer photo shoots.

Comedian Celeste Barber’s new television show Wellmania drops on Netflix on Wednesday, exploring the wellness cult.

The 40-year-old starred in All Saints but truly gained celebrity status when she started to photograph herself side-by-side mimicking celebrity and influencer photo shoots.

Now, her Netflix series is about to kick off.

Celeste Barber skyrocketed when she started to photograph herself side-by-side mimicking celebrity and influencer photo shoots. Picture: Instagram

The show features Barber playing a woman named Liv, an Australian food critic in New York who’s about to hit the big time with a TV judging gig.

On a quick trip home to Australia, she hits a snafu where she can’t return to the US unless she passes a health test.

She then commits to “wellness”, trying a variety of rituals such as aerial silks and herbal laxatives.

Celeste Barber: ‘I refuse to hate how I look’. Picture: Instagram

The eight-part series is co-created by Brigid Delaney and Benjamin Law, adapted from Delaney’s nonfiction book, Wellmania: Misadventures in the Search for Wellness.

In an interview with the ABC, Barber said she is proud of the project – particularly the fact that she did all of her own stunts on the show.

“As women, we get taught so often to abuse our body and hate our body. [But] I’ve really liked using my body, I’m so physically capable of so many things and … physical comedy is my most favourite thing in the world,” she told the publication.

“[But] I’m 40 now, it’s taken a good 58 years to get to that point.

“There’s a fair bit of training that goes into it, but I just refuse to hate how I look. And I go into a lot of stuff thinking that, and I think that’s how it comes across – and how I got to where I am.”

She also said she and her character aren’t the same – but Law commented the pair share a “courage, fearlessness and lack of shame” about their bodies.

Barber said her own fearlessness comes from knowing her currency isn’t how she looks, adding women in the media are told they have to look a certain way but she has flipped the script.

She said instead her value comes from her humour.