Succession‘s Sarah Snook has admitted she felt the weight of unrealistic beauty standards imposed on women during the early days of her acting career.
Snook, 36, is best known for her performance as media mogul Logan Roy’s daughter, Shiv Roy on the smash hit HBO show that ended last year after four brilliant seasons.
Her turn as the fiercely driven, cut-throat Roy sibling recently earned Snook the Golden Globe for Lead Actress in a Drama, with the show having capatapulted the Australian actor to global stardom.
In a new interview, Snook reflected on her journey in the industry, recalling the pressures she faced when she was just starting out.
Snook, who admitted “no one thought I was attractive” when she was growing up, told The Sunday Timesshe had learnt to disassociate her self-worth from her appearance until her early twenties when she landed a role as a prisoner of war in the 2010 film Sisters of War.
“And realistically for the role I had to lose a bunch of weight. And then I remember this guy going, ‘Oh, when did you get hot?’” the award-winning actor said.
The remark, which was intended as a compliment, led Snook to thinking “I’m only worthwhile as an object in the eyes of another person by being a shape that is appreciable to them”, adding “that’s so f***ed up”.
She also detailed her experience on another film after the casting agent told her all the ways in which they would have to change her appearance, including whitening her teeth and signing her up to work with a personal trainer “so you can lose weight and look the part”.
“And then one particular day I had the tiniest bit of chocolate cake,” she continued, adding a producer reprimanded her in front of the cast and crew.
Meanwhile, she continued, a costume designer became indignant on her behalf and told her to keep eating the cake.
“And all the while I am dying inside,” she added.
Snook is currently in London with her husband Dave Lawson and their newborn daughter, as she prepares to bring her one-woman show of The Picture of Dorian Gray to the West End.
She will play all 26 roles in this theatrical reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s classic tale about vanity, narcissism, and the corrupting influence of beauty.
The production opens on 6 February and will run for 14 weeks at the Theatre Royal in London’s Haymarket.
Snook reflected on the end of Succession, mourned by fans around the world, in a heartfelt message shared on Instagram last year.
She wrote: “To have been blessed to join this crazy adventure of a show will be a career highlight, which will no doubt be hard to top. I am so, so proud and humbled by everyone’s hard work season after season: we all set the bar high for each other, then exceeded it and excelled, in every department.”
Snook added she will look back fondly on every bit of being a part of the show but, ultimately, “it’s the people I will miss most of all”.
