With a background in dance and her current career in Hollywood, Lana Condor says she is well-versed in the pressure on women to have the “ideal” body.
The To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before star, 21, said she has dealt with eating disorders and body dysmorphia because of those expectations.
“I know what it’s like to have an eating disorder and body dysmorphia — and also what it’s like to be a friend to someone who has that,” Condor told Elle Canada for their April issue.
And Condor said that her body image issues are relatable for anyone her age, Hollywood star or not.
“I mean, take away the word ‘actor’ and just keep 21-year-old: It’s hard,” she said.
The former ballerina said people need to move away from fetishizing one body type.
“I think it’s time to give people comfort. You have to eat. You have to stop thinking that a certain body shape is ideal, because it’s not,” she said, adding that she now celebrates her food. “That’s why I literally post about every meal I eat.”
But Condor said that she sometimes struggles to get her friends to adopt that same mindset.
“I look at my friends, and I’m like, ‘You’re f——- gorgeous.’ But they feel like they’re fat and ugly,” she said. “I don’t know how this happened, that women feel like they need to apologize [for their physical imperfections].”
Beyond body size, Condor also pushes for greater representation for Asian-American actors. For years she believe that she would never be able to act in a romantic comedy, her dream role.
“In my short career, I’d never seen studios specifically ask for an Asian-American romantic lead, so I wrote it off,” she said. “Which, I think, is part of the problem: I don’t want anyone to write anything off because of the way they look.”
But To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before gave her that opportunity, thanks largely to author Jenny Han, who wrote the original book and insisted that the lead role go to an Asian-American actress.
“One of the reasons I took To All the Boys was because it’s just a story about a girl who falls in love for the first time,” Condor said. “She’s the girl next door who happens to be Asian. Like, that’s not the focus of it because we’re normal f—— human beings.”
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