Gemma Arterton reveals her “traumatic” experience of body-shaming by film producers

Gemma Arterton has spoken out about the “traumatic” experience of being body-shamed by film producers, who flew out a personal trainer to work with her on location and filmed her at the gym to prove that she was exercising.

Speaking to the Guilty Feminist podcast in June, the British actor said: “There was one film that I was on and we were out in Morocco and a couple of weeks went past and they literally were like, ‘We need a personal trainer – stat.’

“And they flew someone out overnight that gave up their whole life to be with me and be my personal trainer.”

"You know when it's like, 'Is it that f***ing bad that I need an emergency?' … [it was as if they were] like on speed dial, 'Get that trainer out here now.’

“It was so traumatic at the time."

Former Bond girl Arterton also said that the producers would measure her and comment on her food intake. “They’d measure me and they’d call up the personal trainer at like nine at night going: ‘Is she in the gym? And if she isn’t, why isn’t she in the gym?’

“And there was one day when I went to get some snacks, they have like snacks on set, and I went to get some apricots, some dried apricots and the man went, this big, fat, obese producer went: ‘I hope you’re not going to eat that.’

“I said ‘Do you know what? I’m going to eat about all 20, then I’m going to go home and eat all the stuff in the mini bar and then I’m going to vomit it all up,’” she said.

Emma Thompson is another star who has recently spoken out about the body-shaming of women in the industry, saying she nearly pulled out of a film because of it.

“There was a wonderful actress in a film I did called Brideshead Revisited,” she said on Swedish talk show Skavlan.

“The producer said to her, “Will you lose some weight?” And she was absolutely exquisite!

“I said to them, “If you speak to her about this again, on any level, I will leave this picture. You are never to do that.”