Celebs Who Wore Fat Suits For A Role

While some actors take the method acting route and gain (or lose) drastic amounts of weight for a part, others rely on prosthetics to get the look they're going for. Fat suits are a quick and easy way for actors to transform their bodies for a part that would otherwise require them to gain tons of weight. While some fat suits are easy to spot, others are pretty surprising. Read on to learn about celebs who've worn fat suits for a role.

Matthew Lewis blew everyone away in 2015 when he posed for Attitude in pretty much nothing but his underwear. Most fans only knew Lewis from his Harry Potter days, when he played the chubby, quirky Gryffindor Neville Longbottom, so his washboard abs threw everyone off their game. During the interview with Attitude, Lewis dropped a bombshell, saying, "I was excited I guess to go on the red carpet on the release of the last film and be me, and not to have to have the fat suit under my t-shirt." 

Wait... what!? That's right: turns out Mr. Longbottom wasn't actually a pudgy wizard. According to Yahoo, Lewis revealed during a 2017 Harry Potter panel that the fat suit actually messed with his self-esteem. "Being 15 years old in the middle of puberty, having to wear a fat suit. There's girls around. I've got this fat suit on every day," he said. "No one knows I'm wearing this damn thing, they all just think I'm fat." Trust us, Lewis: no one thinks you're fat anymore.

Italians pride themselves for being big eaters (with all that delicious pasta, can you even blame them?), and with big appetites often come bigger waistlines. And while Steven Schirripa, aka Bobby 'Bacala' Baccalieri, is definitely not a small guy, producers actually made him don a fat suit during the first couple seasons of The Sopranos. "They called me a couple of days before the shoot, and they said, 'Come on down, you've got to get fitted for a fat suit,'" Schirripa has said. "So, first two seasons I wore a fat suit." Why only the first two seasons, you ask? "I guess they thought I got fat enough on my own and I didn't wear it anymore," Schirripa revealed.

Chrissy Metz is probably best known for her role as Kate, a woman who struggles with her weight in the hit show This Is Us. Metz is a big woman — but not so big that American Horror Story creators didn't put her in a fat suit for her role as The Fat Lady on Freak Show. "I was thrilled to find out that I wasn't big enough," Metz told Yahoo. "It was a first in my life. It was liberating." According to People, the fat suit was "sobering" for Metz, who told the magazine that the extra weight isn't something she wants for her future.

While Metz's This Is Us character's weight struggle is real, in January 2017 many viewers were shocked to learn that her equally overweight love interest in the show, played by Chris Sullivan, actually wore a fat suit on set. Fans questioned the fairness of his fat suit when Metz revealed to TV Line that in contrast, her contract required that she "lose the weight in the trajectory of the character." 

However, Metz doesn't seem bothered by Sullivan's fat suit. On an episode of What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Metz said that Sullivan was the best man for the job and that he "has been heavier, so I think he understands the plight of being overweight."

Perhaps the most memorable parts of Robin Williams' role as the quirky Mrs. Doubtfire are the hilarious quick-change scenes where he transforms from dad to nanny. His look wouldn't be complete without the infamous mask he wore as Mrs. Doubtfire (which actually took a lot longer to put together than what you see in the film), but he also wore a fat suit to achieve the final look. According to CBS News, the costume, complete with fat suit, sold for $20,400 at a 2015 auction.

In real life, Ryan Reynolds is so in shape it's almost unfair. (Seriously, remember THAT scene in The Proposal where he undressed on the balcony?) Which is why director Roger Kumble decided to take Reynolds' role as Chris Brander a step further by adding a giant fat suit to the mix. "I didn't just want to give acne for the high-school scenes," Kumble told Fox News in 2005. "We have to humiliate him at the beginning to understand his pain and his journey." And while wearing a fat suit doesn't affect the body as much as gaining and losing that extra weight would, it still "wasn't easy" according to Reynolds. "I still had to spend four hours every morning in the makeup chair," he told Fox News.

In the classic '90s TV show Friends, Courteney Cox plays the very organized (and thin) Monica Geller. However, true fans know that Monica was overweight during high school, which led to the running "Fat Monica" joke. According to Cox in an interview with LA Times, Fat Monica was "freeing" and her favorite part of playing Monica. "I could do anything because I was hidden under all that prosthetic makeup," she said.

The Austin Powers movies are not only hysterical but also unique for the fact that Mike Myers plays so many different characters. Because he had to transform into all the varying roles, Myers is no stranger to prosthetics and makeup. One of those roles, the wildly overweight and fittingly named Fat Bastard, required a giant fat suit. "I wanted to have a character who was fat, who was the incorrect weight for his height and was born out of wedlock," Myers said in a Hollywood interview.

Gwyneth Paltrow built a whole lifestyle brand around healthy food and fitness, and she herself is so thin she likely disappears when she turns to the side. But in order to play Rosemary alongside Jack Black in Shallow Hal, Paltrow had to gain a significant amount of weight — which she did with a 25-pound fat suit. "The first day I tried [the fat suit] on, I was in the Tribeca Grand and I walked through the lobby. It was so sad. It was so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese," Paltrow told ABC News about the life-changing moment she put on the suit. "The clothes they make for women that are overweight are horrible. I felt humiliated because people were really dismissive."