Since rising to fame in 2017 as Betty Cooper in the CW hit series Riverdale, Lili Reinhart has used her platform to increase awareness about mental health, body image and more. And now, she’s back at it again, this time addressing what it’s like to film shirtless scenes when you’re struggling with your own body image.
Earlier this year, the Hustlers star responded to a pressing fan’s question about what it’s like working on a show with such a “chiseled” cast with an honest reflection:
“Actually, not everyone on this show is perfectly chiseled. And even I feel intimidated by the physique of my surrounding cast mates sometimes when I have to do bra and underwear scenes,” she said, via Glamour. “I’ve felt insecure due to the expectation that people have for women on TV, what they should look like.”
And now, in a new interview with the LA Times for her upcoming movie Chemical Hearts and poetry collection, Swimming Lessons, the 23-year-old actress opened up about her struggles with body image on the Riverdale set as someone who doesn’t feel like she has the “CW girl body.”
“I don’t have the CW girl body — tiny waist, nice-shaped legs, skinny, small, tiny,” Reinhart told the outlet, adding that many of her “perfectly chiseled” co-stars often go 12 hours without eating before a shirtless scene.
“I had to do a bra and underwear scene in this last season and I felt really insecure about it. I really, really didn’t want to do it. I didn’t tell anyone this. I wasn’t pressured into doing it. I did it because it was my job.”
“But,” she continues, “I felt bad about myself doing it. I really did. And this is where it gets complicated. I can’t preach body positivity if I don’t practice it.”
“So even if I’m not feeling amazing about my body, I felt it was important for me to do the scene anyway in my bra and underwear so people could see my body as it was. I did it for the people who feel like they need to look a certain way.”
And, when it comes to the haters who “hide behind a fake Twitter account and call [her] fat,” Reinhart says she’s angry but tries to remain unbothered. Anytime she witnesses a comment like it, she tells herself never to be upset by an opinion from “such a bottom-feeder.”
“You go on Instagram, and I’m like, ‘Oh, look, all these people with these beautifully toned bodies’ and then go to the beach—does anyone on the beach in the real world look like that? I don’t see anyone looking like this,” she told LA Times. “Instagram and Victoria’s Secret runways are not a portrayal of how people look in real life.”
You can read the full interview with Lili Reinhart here. Chemical Hearts, where she makes her leading film role debut alongside Euphoria’s Austin Abrams, is available to stream on Amazon. Her poetry collection, Swimming Lessons, releases on the 29th of September.
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