I lost 90 pounds and my blood pressure went down to a normal level and the salt in my urine disappeared. And that was when I had to make the transition from fat character actor to thin character actor.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The thinnest I've ever been was after I had my appendix out, during the London run of The Seagull. I went down to 112 pounds and realized my brain doesn't work when I'm that thin, so I can't do my job. That's why, when I came out here, I never had that whole Hollywood pressure thing.
I was cast as the lead in a Warner Bros TV pilot and was immediately told I needed to lose weight. I got a bit weird about food for the first time in my life, and I thought, 'You know, this just isn't the life for me.'
I'd just turned 50, weighed 285, and my doctor had read me the riot act about my health.
I got Type 1 diabetes at 30. It hit me in 1982 when I was a White House Fellow in Washington. I had viral pneumonia. I lost 35 pounds in six weeks. And I couldn't see anything. Everything was blurry. I was always thirsty.
I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia, an abnormal decrease of sugar in the blood. Eventually I learned to eat five small meals a day. Now if I'm making a movie and get hungry, I call time out to eat some crackers.
I was pretty bad. When I first was diagnosed with kidney failure, my function - the function of my kidney was less than 8 percent.
I was bulimic and anorexic for a while, just hating my body. As an actress, I was never thin enough, never pretty enough. My boobs weren't big enough.
Yeah! I got type-two diabetes! I'm sure there's going to be some media scandal now, saying I got it because I gained and lost weight for movie parts or something - but I doubt that.
When I graduated from high school, I weighed 125 pounds because of wrestling. Suddenly, I realized I could eat whatever I wanted - plus, creatine was new at the time. I went from 125 to 175 pounds, working out like crazy. I was yoked. But I wasn't drinking enough fluids and ended up with a kidney stone - and 3 weeks of pure hell.
I was quite thin, and I didn't have to worry until I had my appendix out and a mysterious metabolic change occurred.