Amy Schumer Admits Most Hollywood Actresses Schedule "Hungry Days" to Stay Skinny

When the always-honest Amy Schumer appeared on Katie Couric's podcast to talk about her new movie, I Feel Pretty, and the positive message she hopes it will send to women, she revealed an interesting — and sad — fact about Hollywood’s leading ladies. They starve. We knew that, but how they starve opens up a whole new box of worms on dieting and self-esteem problems in the entertainment biz.

In the movie, Amy plays, Reneé, a career woman who looks like, well, Amy Schumer, but hits her head in a Soul Cycle class, leading her to believe she looks like a supermodel. Brilliant.

“It’s about my character, Reneé, she doesn’t have particularly good self esteem and understands people judge you for how you look… she longs for a better job, better guys, and all of a sudden I see myself as an absolute supermodel,” Amy explains. “It’s a whole new life, a whole new person.”

Amy adds that she wanted to get the message across to women that we all have so much potential and should work more on self-esteem that doesn’t all depend on our looks. She thinks what helped her become famous is the fact that she’s relatable, raw, authentic... and looks normal.

“People don’t see female images like that nearly enough,” Amy said. “As for as actresses go, the ones sort of in charge of the box office of a movie it goes like Rebel Wilson, Melissa McCarthy, and then it goes to like Emma Stone. There’s nobody really in the middle right now, I’m floating around the middle right now… a lot of people will actually think I’m one of the stagehands… Anybody who looks at all similar they just see sort of a blonde plumpness and they think we’re all one person.

“Howard Stern once asked me, ‘Why don’t you lose like 30 pounds?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t want to. I’ll be hungry.’ And I lost some weight for Trainwreck and I was like, beauty and body, that’s not my currency, that’s not my thing. I feel beautiful and I feel strong and sexy, but I’m not going to be the most beautiful girl, so I’m not gonna try to market myself or get myself there. And I don’t think that sends a good message. How about not striving for some other version of yourself? Like, why not love what you’ve got going on right now rather than this eternal dissatisfaction?”

Amy didn’t let post-production retouch any of her scenes in the movie where she shows a lot of skin, and said she feels proud and excited to show off her body.

“That’s against the point and I feel excited about that,” she said, adding that the only examples young girls are left seeing these days are on The Bachelor, and that sadly, she knows how her actress friends stay so thin.

“Most people can’t afford a chef and a trainer and someone to bring over your little pile of seeds that you’re allowed to eat in the morning. And I can afford those things and I’m like, I’m not doing that,” Amy said. “But those people aren’t happy either. I have some friends who are like ‘I won’t be able to hang out today. I won’t be able to enjoy it, I have to be ‘hungry’ today and that’s typical for like, a lot of actresses, and it’s like, still? Come on, enough. I go to awards shows and I try to look my best and I look how the costume designers look and I feel proud about that.”