Gwyneth Paltrow has disclosed the heartbreaking reason why she felt "humiliated" while filming Shallow Hal.
The 51-year-old Academy-award-winning actress starred in the controversial 2001 rom-com alongside Jack Black.
The movie follows Hal Larson (played by Black), who struggles to get a girlfriend due to his shallow attitude - until he meets life coach Tony Robbins in an elevator, who hypnotizes him into seeing only a woman's inner beauty.
Hal ends up falling for his boss' daughter, Rosemary (played by Paltrow), and sees her as a skinny blonde. However, in reality she is plus-sized - something he would not have considered for a potential partner without the hypnosis.
Check out the trailer below:The movie, which was directed by the Farrelly brothers, did well at the box office, grossing $141 million against a $40 million budget.
However, it came under fire as Paltrow donned a 25-pound fatsuit and prosthetics to portray her character Rosemary's "real" body.
The Iron Man star opened up about the flick and her time on set in an interview with The Guardian, revealing: "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," she continued, adding that she felt "humiliated".
“For some reason, the clothes they make for women that are overweight are horrible. I felt humiliated because people were really dismissive," she said, per ABC News.
Paltrow may have worn a fat suit for the role, however, another woman named Ivy Snitzer was used as the actress' body double for additional shots in the film.
Snitzer - whose arms, torso, and thighs, were used for close-up shots of Rosemary - also spoke about the terrible effect the movie's release had on her life.
"It didn’t occur to me that the film would be seen by millions of people. It was like the worst parts about being fat were magnified," she told The Guardian. “I was like: maybe I’m done with the concept of fame, maybe I don’t want to be an actor. Maybe I’ll do something else. I just want to make people laugh; I don’t want to make people sad."
The actress recalled that the film didn’t initially make her feel bad about herself. “Until you know, other people started telling me I probably should have felt bad about myself,” she said.
“I wanted to be small and not seen. I’m sure that’s there, but I don’t ever remember consciously thinking about it. I was always my personality. I’ve always been a personality in this body," she concluded.
Jack Black initially hoped the movie would be funny, but he later confessed that it didn't end up being what he'd expected.
"I had an opportunity to work with some dudes I thought were really funny, but it didn’t turn out as I’d hoped," he said in 2006, as cited by Metro. "I wasn’t proud of it, and I got paid a lot of money, so, in retrospect, it feels like a sell-out."
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