‘Me Before You’ Star Sam Claflin Said He Was Once Body-Shamed on Set
Me Before You star Sam Claflin opened up to The Sydney Morning Herald about being body-shamed while on set.
To this day, he still gets anxiety before auditions and will sometimes not eat for weeks.
“I read in an interview recently and I think it’s absolutely true: men have it just as bad,” he said. “Well, not just as bad but they get it bad and it’s never talked about. I remember doing one job when they literally made me pull my shirt up and were grabbing my fat and going, ‘You need to lose a bit of weight.’ This other time they were slapping me. I felt like a piece of meat.”
He continued: “I’m not saying it’s anywhere near as bad as what women go through but I, as an actor approaching each job, am insecure — especially when I have to take my top off — and so nervous. I get really worked up to the point where I spend hours and hours in the gym and not eating for weeks to achieve what I think they’re going for. In the ’50s and ’60s, it was never an issue. James Bond never had a six pack. He had a hairy chest. Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire had an incredible body but he was by no means ripped to within an inch of his life. There’s a filter on society that this is normal but actually it’s anything but normal.”