Hunger Games star admits body dysmorphia made him hate shirtless scenes
Sam Claflin played Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games (Lionsgate | Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)
Actor Sam Claflin has opened up about his struggles with body confidence and disordered eating.
The 39-year-old, who played Finnick Odair in three Hunger Games movies, spoke to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast. He spoke of how his body dysmorphia left him hating having to film shirtless scenes.
“A lot of the roles I played earlier on in my career – I had a topless scene in one of my first movies, but it wasn’t in the script and I got told a week before they were going to have my top off,” he said.
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“I was like, ‘S***, I haven’t been working out, what am I going to do? This is my first introduction to the world.'”
Claflin explained that he didn’t feel he was “good looking” or “strong enough” growing up, added he hit puberty “late”.
Even now, the star said he’s “incredibly insecure”.
He said: “I just went to a screening of a film I was in and everyone immediately afterwards… ‘How was it?’ And… ‘I hated it.’
“It’s my face I don’t like. I have like a form of body dysmorphia.”
Claflin said that the acting industry and social media has only made his struggles worse.
“I’ve been massively affected by [body dysmorphia]. I’d say most guys are but I would say mine got quite bad.”
Claflin was open about his issues with eating too, saying he “will skip meals” and that he doesn’t have breakfast.
‘I am massively impacted by what other people think’
“It’s a real struggle,” he said. “It’s like an every day struggle.
“I am massively impacted by what other people think and if they think I look good or am a nice person.”
Claflin spoke of his struggles last year, saying that becoming an actor was what caused it.
He told The Telegraph: “There is this Hollywood assumption that it’s the men with the six packs who sell the movie. So there was a pressure that that was what I needed to look like.
“As a result, I developed a form of body dysmorphia. It wasn’t quite an eating disorder, and I’m not blaming anyone but myself, but it was definitely because of the industry I’m in.”
Claflin’s first credited role was in the 2010 television series The Pillars of the Earth. He has since gone on to star in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Snow White and the Huntsman, Charlie’s Angels, Peaky Blinders and Daisy Jones & The Six, as well as his most famous role in The Hunger Games.
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