Sarah Snook Says Casting Director Once Told Her ‘You’re a Nobody’ and We Need to ‘Change All of You’ and Make You ‘Lose Weight’

Michaela Zee

Sarah Snook revealed that she was mistreated by both a casting director and film producer in the early part of her career.

In a new interview with The Sunday Times, the “Succession” star said that after she landed a film role, the casting director told her, “We don’t really want you because you’re a nobody, but the director and the writer think you’re good for the role. So what we’ll do is change all of you so that you’re marketable: We’ll whiten your teeth, darken your hair, we’ll give you a personal trainer so you can lose weight and look the part.”

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The actor agreed to these conditions, figuring that “in order for me to be successful, I have to be all the things that aren’t me.”

Snook also recalled a situation where a film producer chastised her in front of the cast and crew for having the “tiniest bit of chocolate cake.” A costume designer intervened and encouraged her to continue eating. “And all the while I am dying inside.”

“The infantilizing of women, to not be able to make their own decisions, why would we do that to women?” Snook asked rhetorically.

Snook recently scored her second Golden Globe win for her performance as Shiv Roy in the critically-acclaimed HBO series “Succession,” and will vie for an Emmy at the awards ceremony on Monday night. She wept when the series finale aired in May 2023.

“I was three or four weeks postpartum, the hormones were raging,” she said. “But it was just the chrysalis of knowing that’s the end of this really important, special part of my life.”

Up next, Snook is returning to London’s West End to portray all 26 parts in a production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

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