Renée Zellweger responds to criticism for wearing 'triggering' fat-suit

Renée Zellweger has responded to criticism over her wearing a ‘fat suit’ for her role in TV show The Thing About Pam. 

The star was met with a bit of a backlash after photos of her in character as Pamela Hupp were shared online, with some commenters absurdly suggesting the use of a padded suit and prosthetics as ‘fat-phobic’ or ‘potentially triggering to plus size people’. 

During an interview with the Sunday Times, Zellweger was asked about the criticism, to which she replied: “Look, you want to be respectful and responsible. There’s always a limit to how much you can establish an authentic approximation without being distracting.” You can see how she looked in the show here: 

In a previous interview about what she had to wear during filming, she said: “It was pretty much head to toe. It was prosthetics, it was a [padded] suit, it was the choice of clothing, it was the briskness in her step-step-step, her gait.

“All of those things were really important because all those bits and pieces are what construct the person that we project our own conclusions and presumptions onto.”

The series is based on the real-life story of Hupp - a woman who is currently serving life in prison for murder. 

A synopsis for the show, which aired earlier this year, reads: “Based on the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria that resulted in her husband Russ’ conviction, though he insisted he did not kill her. His conviction later was overturned, but the brutal crime set off a chain of events that would expose a diabolical scheme deeply involving Pam Hupp."

LANDMARK MEDIA/Alamy Stock Photo

Talking about the level of effort involved in creating the character, makeup artist Arjen Tuiten told Variety: “We had cheek pieces that went all the way up to the temple. 

“There was the chin piece, the nose piece, a neck piece that went all the way around.”

In addition to the facial prosthetics, forearm and ankle pieces were also added. 

In total, it took around an hour and 20 minutes to apply the prosthetics. 

Zellweger said working covered in the special additions had been a learning curve.​​ “Every day I learned something new: How the pieces are built, how they have minds of their own and what they become during the day isn’t quite what they begin as,” she told Variety.

“Also, I learned it’s a different kind of skill to work with your entire body covered in prosthetics.”

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