Erika Christensen is comfortable in her own skin these days. The actress has found acclaim and a steady paycheck with her complex role on Hulu‘s hit mystery Will Trent. But the self-confidence took a long time. And small wonder when you hear what she went through as a kid!
The Swimfan star began her career in Hollywood as a child actor — and immediately learned how her body would be scrutinized and sexualized. Disturbingly this was when she wasn’t even a teenager yet!
Speaking to Us Weekly last week, the 43-year-old recalled:
“I started acting when I was 12, and in my first movie they wanted to stuff my bra. And I mean, we did it, but I was like, ‘Oh, how interesting.’ I immediately was like, ‘Oh, this is the world that I live in. OK.’”
UGH! Gross!
Related: Modern Family Star Ariel Winter Talks Encounters With ‘Male Predators’ As A Child
What the hell was this movie where they did this to such a young girl? Based on Erika’s IMDB credits, her first movie is the ’90s Leave It To Beaver reboot. A family film! And they thought her pre-teen boobs didn’t look big enough on camera?! WTF!
Later in life, Erika says, her body naturally evolved “heavier” — so of course she was told to “lose weight” or was just flat-out rejected for some roles for not being “fit enough”. Sadly she onboarded all that criticism in her 20s and tried to make all these guys happy:
“And I really looked at the different parts of that for me. I was like, ‘OK, that’s that person’s opinion. That’s that director. So if I want to work with that director, then I have to play his game.’”
But these days? Eff it. She declares:
“Now, I’m not playing that game, I’m not working out, so that’s fine.”
Now she just worries about being healthy — and the rest of it doesn’t matter. Hell yeah, girl! And turns out, that looks great on her!
[Image via MEGA/WENN/Universal/YouTube.]
