Emma Thompson: ‘Young actresses are pressured to look like models’

Emma Thompson fears young actresses are under “terrible” pressure to look like skinny fashion models. The Oscar winner is convinced movie bosses these days are more concerned with looks than acting talent, and younger stars are forced to lose weight and stay super-slim.
She tells Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, “It seems young actresses are under pressure to look a particular way… They have to be this specific model size, and if they get on to the red carpet, they’re all having to walk like models and dress like models. I think the pressure is terrible.
“If you’re invited to re-invent yourself, in the language in which that conversation is couched, it’s difficult to resist: ‘You’ve got to be thinner. You’ve got to be prettier. Because we need to sell you, and we won’t be able to sell you if you don’t look like this.’ It’s not about acting. They don’t care if you can act or not. I can only imagine what the pressures must be like.”
However, the British star is adamant she would have refused to change her image as a youngster, adding, “I’d have told them where to shove it. I’ve always been a card-carrying feminist. But in those days, I was fierce, fierce, very angry.”