Sarah Snook has experienced her fair share of body-shaming while on the job.
The “Succession” star, 36, detailed a few of those infuriating instances in an interview with the UK Times published Friday.
The actress recalled one particular movie producer scolding her for eating “the tiniest bit of chocolate cake,” explaining that he told her off in front of the entire cast and crew.
Although she said a costume designer intervened and encouraged her to keep eating it, Snook remembered feeling like she was “dying inside.”
The new mom went on to share that a casting agent once told her, “We don’t really want you because you’re a nobody, but the director and the writer think you’re good for the role.
“So what we’ll do is change all of you so that you’re marketable: We’ll whiten your teeth, darken your hair, we’ll give you a personal trainer so you can lose weight and look the part.”
In the name of professionalism, Snook accepted the harsh feedback. She thought to herself, “In order for me to be successful, I have to be all the things that aren’t me.”
Another time, the Australia native said she “had to lose a bunch of weight” to play the role of a prisoner of war.
“And then I remember this guy going, ‘Oh, when did you get hot?'” she recalled, explaining that she interpreted the remark as, “Well, I wasn’t hot before, so I must have been disgusting. Therefore, I must maintain this shape at all costs, and I’m only worthwhile as an object in the eyes of another person by being a shape that is appreciable to them.”
The Emmy Award winner admitted that what she had just revealed was “f–ked-up so bad,” telling the outlet she was “totally” enraged and corrupted by it all at the same time.
“The infantilizing of women, to not be able to make their own decisions, why would we do that to women?” she wondered.
Snook explained how her feelings on the matter have only intensified since quietly welcoming a baby girl last year.
“I’d like to hopefully change this for my daughter — if it’s even at all possible,” she lamented, confessing that even innocent comments about her little one’s beauty make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
“She’s a very cute baby, and people already go, ‘Oh, what a beautiful girl!’ And there’s a sense of protection that kicks in for me and goes, ‘Whoa, she’s more than that — or she will be,'” the actress explained.
“She is genuinely very cute — and I don’t think that’s just a biased mother saying that — but I am wary of that being language that she experiences growing up.”
Snook — who debuted her baby bump at the Season 4 premiere of “Succession” in March 2023 — added, “It’s better to feel like one looks like s–t but not to think that it matters than to feel that one looks beautiful and that that’s your value.”
