Months ago, I lost my temper about Sarah Paulson and her “regret” at donning “fat prosthetics” to play Linda Tripp on American Crime Story: Impeachment. As I wrote at the time, Paulson’s decisions were not made in a vacuum, and I blame Ryan Murphy for miscasting Paulson (his muse) as Tripp, when really she should have played Hillary Clinton. Paulson said yes to the Tripp role because she knew it was the “juicier” role, a role which would get her an Emmy nomination, and because she believed playing Tripp would be as easy as putting on padding, a bad wig and some face prosthetics. Before the series began airing, she did apologize and say that she regrets the “fatphobia” of taking the role. Now she seems to regret her regret?
In a new interview with The Wrap, the Impeachment: American Crime Story star, 46, acknowledged that people were upset over her being cast as White House whistleblower Linda Tripp in the FX series, a role for which she gained 30 pounds and wore a suit to make her appear heavier. Paulson defended taking the role, and called the criticism, which centered on the fact that Paulson is a thin woman, “particularly gender-specific.”
“It did hurt my feelings, partly because it felt, as often happens when you’re criticized for your work, or when you’re celebrated too … it’s very hard not to personalize. It’s very hard to not want to say, ‘Don’t you know I just spent two years of my life and then I gained 30 pounds to play this part?’ And that I like, slept, breathed, wept, bled Linda Tripp for two years?” Paulson explained during the site’s 2021 Power Women’s Summit, which also featured Cynthia Erivo. “So for you to sit down at your computer and decide that maybe this endeavor was not worthwhile, and that maybe I shouldn’t have been the one to play it, is so hurtful and also wrong.”
Calling it “the acting challenge of my life,” Paulson said the response “has been all over the map, and I welcome it, honestly, because it means I did my job … It meant the world to me to get to do it.”
“So for you to sit down at your computer and decide that maybe this endeavor was not worthwhile, and that maybe I shouldn’t have been the one to play it, is so hurtful and also wrong.” WTF? She’s coming at her critics with defiance now? “How dare you call out the fatphobia of my casting, that hurts my feelings!” Actors will really defend their worst decisions this way too. Instead of just sitting there and trying to understand why this continues to be a bad look, they get angry with the people trying to talk about why their casting represents sizeism, fatphobia and chronic miscasting.
Photos courtesy of FX and Avalon Red.
Her just mentioning that she had to gain 30 pounds for the role shows that she’s fatphobic. They should have cast a full figured actress to play Tripp.
Exactly, Sarah should take several seats.
The vast majority of people cannot put on and take off weight like a costume and they’re shamed, blamed and excluded because of that. Heavier women don’t get to play thin, or even fat in this case, yet here is Sarah crying victim while she’s profiting from skinny privilege AND the *struggle* of playing fat? Gross.
Gaining / losing weight isn’t acting. Putting on a fat suit isn’t acting. “Fat” isn’t a character you perform.
Your last sentence is incredibly well put
This is how ingrained fat phobia is in our culture
Jfc. Does she think no one is entitled to their opinions on her public work? Massive eyeroll.
I usually like her, but no, sit down Sarah. Don’t turn into Scarlett Johansson. You can play any role you’d like in acting class. In actual entertainment, representation matters, and so do opportunities for actors who don’t fit the very narrow mold allowed by Hollywood.
You can play Linda Tripp when fat actors have an equal chance at being cast in all the many roles you have had where being thin was an unstated part of the job description. Some of them would have put two years of their lives into those roles too.
exactly – this wouldn’t raise eyebrows if heavier actresses (and people generally) weren’t facing daily discrimination because of their weight
I’ve always considered her beautiful, but man, the hairdo in the white suit picture is not flattering at all
I understand where she’s coming from when she says it’s hard to not taking it personnaly but when you raise this point and you don’t at the same time acknowledge that you taking the role hurt other people feelings too, it’s an issue.
how many heavier (hell or even healthy weight but “LA plus-size”) have a bitch of a time getting roles because they’re not thin enough? her argument jus makes my head hurt
“It’s hurtful and also wrong,” and then she adds “the response had been all over the map but I welcome it” — well which is it? She is so hurt by criticism or she will welcome criticism? Come on.
PS. This is mild compared to how fat people are treated DAILY.
lol – can you IMAGINE her facing the daily trolling heavier women face?
I’ve been very heavy and very thin, and the best part about being thin (even though I was very unwell at the time) was everyone shutting for once about what i eat, what i wear, the space i take up etc. etc. etc.
my heaviest friend was often shoved and jostled and jabbed on the bus just minding her own business going to work where she’d regularly get in sh*t because her uniform didn’t fit properly because the company didn’t make larger sizes. and yet she persisted.
sarah. could. never.
Ugh, she bugs. I don’t know why she’s so beloved in Hollywood, but maybe it just doesn’t translate.
It’s because of who she’s married to. Holland Taylor is a veteran, hugely respected on the quiet in the way that actually matters. She’s been hanging off Holland’s respect for a while. Sorry, but that’s how it is…
Whew. I find her whining about this quite annoying. She shouldn’t have taken the role as a thin actress and when she was initially called out about it she apologized and now she’s mad that she was “forced” to apologize for her great work.
I usually like Paulson but this is annoying the sh*t out of me.
Yeah I find any entertainer complaining along these lines annoying. This conversation should be kept amongst her peers in the industry
Or with her best friend or her therapist. Not everything needs to be worked out in public, where the audience includes the people you’ve hurt with your behavior.
I think she shouldn’t have taken the role and should handle criticism better but I also want to point out that she DID gain a lot of weight. She didn’t just put on padding. I don’t understand acknowledging that the lived experience of overweight people is harder than those of people who are thin/ at a “healthy” weight but if ignoring that she experienced this as well. So she did gain weight and yes, she’s a celebrity and has privilege but I think we would agree her experience as a heavier person was different than hers as a thin person.
That’s fair, but she is so thin as it is that even putting on 30 pounds wouldn’t make her that overweight. It would make her a little chubby.
Seriously, it’s like RZ gaining 30 lbs for Bridget Jones. HARDLY “fat”, just a little chubby in the face and busty.
Right now, unless you’re Beanie Feldstein, you’re not getting work as a lead (and even she’s slimmed to take the Fanny Brice role). Look at Rebel Wilson: she was ONLY cast as the “fat, funny/idiot friend” and she lost almost 80 lbs to try and get better roles.
and now they’re dragging Rebel Wilson, who came out and said her own team tried to discourage her losing weight because her size was part of her fame. F*** ’em as “team members,” then, I’d be replacing ’em stat!
I think everyone would like to live a life without hurt feelings and billions of people are working hard all the time, all their lives. So whatever.
lol!
Not sure why she thinks she is so special that a more appropriately sized actress could not have replaced her. I honestly can’t recall watching anything that she is in since the 90s.
As I said below I agreed until I watched it. She gives a fabulous performance, the best of her career by far. IMO, she’s absolutely the one for this role.
As much as her mood about this whole thing annoys me, I agree: she’s perfectly cast in that role, and she totally suspended the disbelief of the audience…she WAS Linda Tripp, you didn’t see Sarah Paulson acting as Linda, you saw Linda…she pulled it off.
The issue with Hollywood as a whole is the lack of opportunities for people of different shapes, skin color and sexuality. A white slim woman like Sarah Paulson who will always find work because of her connections to Ryan Murphy who’ll make more series with her can’t see it. And when it’s a serie/movie based on real life events, it’s a better choice to pick someone who ressemble the character.
It’s already hard for underrepresented actors to have a interesting role without the typical label (Asian: Nerd, Fat: Funny, Black: Slave and so on so on. It sounds mean but that’s sadly usually the case) so imagine having a role that “fit” you being taken away by the overpriviledge actors…
Everybody do the word salad dance.
lololol!!!
As i said in her last thread already, her justification could be applied to other miscastings as well. Eddie R. for trans, Zoe S. for colorism etc. And given her activism I’m sure she understands why these 2 are wrong. It’s just when it’s her role of a lifetime that the rules suddenly don’t apply.
Her initial regrets were the correct response, not this.
Physical appearance is very limiting in Hollywood. 95 percent of roles are created for white, thin, able-bodied people. When the role DOESN’T call for any of those things, please give the role to an actor who actually fits the description, as their opportunities are already few and far between. It’s offensive that Sarah gained weight to take this role from someone who could’ve naturally matched Tripp’s physique, when Sarah could’ve literally played anyone else.
I read the first articles on this and agreed that she could’ve played anybody else, but in between that and this post, I watched the show. And her performance as Linda Tripp Is one of the most amazing acting performances I’ve ever seen. Not just her appearance but her mannerisms, her voice, Her posture, gait, her timing, were all perfect. I forgot a times that I was watching an actor. She truly deserves an acting award for this, I wish there were something better than an Emmy she could get for it. It would’ve been really easy to make a character like Linda come off as just pure Campy villain, but this portrayal was so much more nuanced and it wasn’t just the script and directing that made it that way. She was absolutely the one for this role.
I understand what you’re saying. I haven’t seen this show but I know Sarah Paulson is a great actress. The thing is though — able-bodied actors have won Oscars for playing people with disabilities. Because they put in great performances. Because such performances are literally called “Oscar bait,” because the Academy finds it a particular “challenge” to play a disabled person, because the actor had to do “research” on what it’s like to live with a disability. But that doesn’t justify it at all; it infuriates me. Because when an able-bodied person plays someone in a wheelchair, they’re taking that role away from someone who can ONLY play characters who are wheelchair users while the able-bodied actor has their pick of any other role in the world. And who is to say they played the role better than the wheelchair-using actor could’ve?
I don’t think roles require lived experience in all instances. That’s what acting is all about. But when it comes to physical attributes — disability, skin color, weight — it is wrong every single time to take that role from someone who already has less roles they can play.
i don’t care if she turned out a great performance – the result doesn’t justify the means for me and i’d much rather see more opportunity for bigger women that any number of steller performances by thin women playing fat
I’m fully prepared to get told I’m wrong, but I think that Sarah is in a terrible situation.
One- she’s not in the young ingenue category anymore which means roles have plummeted. Interesting roles are always scarce for women and if your over theory, it’s even harder
2nd- Hollywood is so fat phobic that a plus size actress, who looks like most female Americans, is never written a part. When there’s finally one, in this case, a thin actress plays her.
This happens whenever there’s a female led movie. Everyone wants it to be all the things to everyone because we know we will have to wait another five years, for another.
So basically Sarah is in an awful business and it’s a structural problem that she’s getting hate for. Not cool.
sure it’s a structural problem, but it’s one that she’s actively contributing to, and being a victim of sexism/ageism in Hollywood doesn’t absolve her
she wouldn’t play a role written for a Black woman or a trans person – why is this different? i’m guessing it’s because people mistakenly believe that weight is something you can control and change at will like hair or clothes
I agree that Non-trans actors should not play non-trans characters and same for race and disability…But this presents problems for me because I’m like, where do we draw the line? In law school we learned that immutable characteristics (ones you are born with and can’t change) are afforded special protections. I know that in many cases, someone’s size is not mutable. But neither is nationality. Can an English actor play a German character? Or Korean/Chinese? Can a Neurotypical actor play someone with ADHD? What about someone with a speech impediment? Should they have hired an actor with a speech impediment to play the king instead of Colin Firth? If they had, would all the people that saw the movie because they love Colin Firth not have seen it? It’s a balance between awareness and practicality. They weren’t saying anything about the condition of being fat in this series, so I give them some leeway I guess. If it had been a movie about a woman who is miss treated because of her size and said some thing about breaking the fat shaming cycle, I would be pissed if they used a thin woman in a fat suit. Idk. Maybe Paulson should have Been more thoughtful about how she spoke about it and that would have helped.
The age thing shouldn’t be a problem tho. SP is 46 and Linda was 49.
The first problem is that there aren’t many non-skinny women in Hollywood. Actresses still need to look like supermodels. Secondly, it’s also crazy to me that skinny women play bigger women or superheroes without putting on muscles. Look at Gal Gadot and then look at the extras in Wonder Women. That’s a massive difference. Look at Scarlett Johannson or Brie Larson in the Marvel movies. They get tons of padding in their suits to look a bit more muscular. Why not just cast someone who isn’t a skinny lady for those roles instead?
I dunno. I think we should just get over the whole let’s get the actor to look exactly like the real person via prosthetics or fatsuits. I mean Fanny Brice was a pretty skinny woman yet I can totally buy Beanie Feldstein playing her in Funny Girl. I also recently rewatched Norma Jean and Marilyn and I was struck how dead on Mira Sorvino was as Monroe even though physically she looked nothing like her at the very least. Maybe that’s why I’m giving the whole Nicole Kidman a chance. Lucie Arnaz did say she captured her mom’s spirit so maybe it will be good? We shall see.