It is my pleasure.

How are you?

I feel like I'm very BBC today as  well. I'm very serious… profesh.

I think you could almost be a newsreader for us. I could, you know, ‘Coming up now at the 11:00  

AM hour’. Wait, is that what they say?

Coming up.

No. ‘Breaking news’. Yeah, I  probably won't get hired from this.

It's so interesting because you are one of  the most high-profile actresses in Hollywood…

I'd say I'm in the top 1,000  for sure, I'd put myself…

You are one of the top 1,000. But have been  in those really iconic films that people  

watch over and over again, I think I might have  watched Bridesmaids an insane amount of times.  

That was my first job in America, and what a first  job to get to be in that kind of ensemble and  

to be in a movie that really, it was one of the  first, even though obviously women have been funny  

for at least 20 years - no, I'm joking: forever-,  Bridesmaids was one of the first where they were  

like ‘wow, women are funny in Hollywood’. So to  get that as my first job in America was epic.

And also to be in the Pitch Perfect  franchise, which is like the most  

successful musical comedy films of all time,  which blows my mind when you think about that. 

I was like ‘God, are they really?’ Yeah,  they really are like bang 1, 2 and 3,  

and that is so special. I'm sure it'll be eclipsed  at some point, you know, like an Olympic record:  

someone will come in and it might be better,  but it's so awesome to be a part of something  

so special and that so many people all around  the world have, like, really, really enjoyed.

Is it true though that  

you could have been a lawyer? Well, I am a lawyer.

Oh you are a lawyer!

Yeah, I graduated in 2009. I  feel like I have the photo…

It's not my best smile, but I was very proud of  myself that day. This is 2009 when I graduated,  

it was a very happy day because I was already  obviously I was a professional actress, I'd been  

in 10 TV shows by the time I graduated from law  school, but there was something about me that I  

was like ‘I have to finish, I have to complete  this degree’. It was very, very difficult.  

In Australia, for law and medicine you need  the top marks in your final exams to get in and  

I got into like the best law school. So I was like ‘OK, I'm gonna  

graduate’ even though it was pretty  clear I was working in as an actress.

What was your parents reaction then when  you were like ‘I want to be an actress  

in Hollywood’. I always imagine that  those words would scare parents, right?

It was bad, it was really bad. I was a very  studious young lady, so yeah, they definitely  

thought I would do something good like a more  traditional type of job, put it that way.

So I took a gap year, which I thought  was really smart after high school,  

and I was what's called a youth ambassador  for Australia and based in southern Africa.  

That really changed the trajectory of my life. I  was going out in and out of malaria zones all the  

time with the work that I had to do over there,  and I got malaria really bad in rural Mozambique.  

And when I was in the hospital back in South  Africa recovering from it, I had a hallucination  

that I was an actress and… it was so real! Everyone thought, no, she's just demented. But  

that was enough to convince me that's what my life  was going to be. So I come back to Australia and  

I go ‘guys, I'm going to become a professional  actress, I've seen it. I'm gonna win an Academy  

Award. It's like really good’, and everyone  was like ‘oh my God, like… no. You're an idiot,  

no one is gonna pick you, like you're not an  actress, you're naturally quite a shy person’.

I was like, yeah, but I've  seen the vision so I went  

and enrolled in law school, but did acting  sneaky at night to try to get in there.

What about when Bridesmaids took off?

Yeah, I mean that was big ‘cause they came  over for the premiere and they were like  

‘oh, she is like legit now’. Yeah. It's interesting because I have read that  

you were successful with Bridesmaids at age 30.

Yeah, yeah, I came to Hollywood when I was 29.

And you called yourself a  late bloomer. Why is that?  

I definitely do think that. When I was 29 turning  30 and I had a great career at that point in  

Australia. And then I got off a big network TV  contract in Australia and I was like oh, but  

if I don't go now it's a bit late,  if you're already 30 or whatever  

to come to Hollywood as a woman. Although  there's many exceptions to that rule,  

and many ladies that have broken out in  their 50s and have incredible careers.

We don't hear enough about that.

Yeah, you don't. You don't hear about it,  but normally maybe it's like the younger,  

more ingenue girls and then they develop more.

So I was just like ‘OK, if I don't go  now to Hollywood I'll never make it’,  

so I sold everything that I owned my car, my  computer, my apartment, everything. I came  

to America with one suitcase and like one little  pillow. But it was a bit late, and I was probably  

overqualified for the very  small role I had in Bridesmaids.

You are now producing, so you've got  credits in The Hustle and Isn't It Romantic…

Yeah, Isn't It Romantic was my first one, The  Hustle with Anne Hathaway, and then now Senior  

Year, which is a big cheerleading comedy. What's that like? Tell us a little bit  

about how it's different.

It's great, great to have the power.  Because obviously coming up in the industry  

I had to work for like a lot of guys,  where you kind of get the crappier roles,  

the roles just weren't as well written or  as well developed, it would just be very  

hard to kind of put your comedy or your jokes  sometimes into if you didn't have any power.

So what I did is I use all those experiences  in a positive way and learn stuff  

from watching these guys, but really  wanted to get to the point where I had  

the power to make the movies and choose  the storylines and choose the characters  

and choose who I put in the movies. It's just  cool 'cause you can be more authentic and put  

more of your messages. My latest one is  just so girl power and there's so many…

This is the movie that you're directing next year?

No, this is one I've just shot.

You just shot and you are going  to be directing a movie as well.  

Yeah, I've now gone even further  and been offered a directing job  

for a movie script that I've written called  Girl Group, that'll go into production in 2022.  

And I'm so passionate about the stories I  want to tell, so why not go for the top job.

Talking of empowerment, you  have been in a year of health.  

Yeah, I didn't predict the pandemic, but weirdly,  sometimes I'm a little psychic and I go ‘oh,  

I feel like I'm not going to be working  much this year’, and I feel like turning  

40 I'm going to concentrate on my health.  I was dealing with fertility stuff and the  

doctors are like, ‘well yeah, if you're  healthier, you have better chances’.

So that all kind of culminated and the  moment it hit 2020 it was like, ‘OK, yeah,  

it's gonna be my year of health. I'm gonna  put it out publicly on Instagram and stuff  

for accountability’. But who knows  that whether that was the smartest?  

And why was that important  for you, to do it that way?

Because I did want to make a lasting change and  I wanted to be accountable to myself for it. So  

making it very public kind  of helped... It was risky,  

I guess, because before I had lost weight and then  put it back on and you get criticism sometimes  

for that. And it was just… yeah, I'll just  make it make the decision to make it public.

The number of headlines about you losing weight…

Oh, it’s insane! I looked at what  happened for me in 2019, I had four  

pretty successful movies come out, and had  done all this amazing stuff career wise.  

But then in the next year all I did was just  lose 80 pounds, and the attention that gets…

It was insane.

… is way more than being in an  Academy Award nominated film and  

producing my first movie and doing all this stuff.

Can I read you one headline? Oh yeah, sure.

Rebel Wilson has a Bond girl moment in  an incredible curb-hugging swimsuit.

Wow, I never thought I'd be  described anywhere near a Bond girl.

But how do you feel about that sort  of headlines about your weight loss?

I've noticed that it's been getting a lot of  attention and I go, ‘so is that what a woman has  

to do in the world, just lose weight to like, get  attention?’ For me it was so much bigger, it was  

about just being the healthiest version of me, so  it wasn't about the size or a number or whatever.

But it's fascinating. Why are people so  obsessed with it? I know what it's like  

to be a woman who is essentially invisible  to most people because of not being seen  

as traditionally beautiful or whatever. I know what it's like when nobody holds  

the door open for you or, you know, just  looks at you almost like you have no value  

because you're not seen as good looking  to them. So I know what that's like.

And then you really noticed, you  get like this bias towards you,  

just purely because of your appearance,  which is wrong, I do think it's wrong,  

but you can't deny that's  how society does operate.  

It's kind of conflicting, it must  leave you feeling a bit mixed about  

it because on the one hand you shouldn't  have to lose weight to be treated nicely…

No, no, and I'm proud that the message that's got  across is that it wasn't about just losing weight,  

it was about me being healthier overall.  And that's what I'm trying to encourage  

other people out there 'cause that should be the  goal, should never be to fit some certain weird  

beauty standard that society deems is the beauty  standard of this year. Should never be about that.

My body type before was a size 16-18, it  was THE body type of the 17th, 18th century.  

I would have crushed it in that era.

I got a lot of pushback from my own team  actually here in Hollywood when I said,  

‘OK, I'm going to do this year of health.  I feel like I'm really going to physically  

transform and change my life’. And they were  like ‘why, why would you want to do that?’  

Because I was earning millions of dollars being  the funny fat girl and like being that person...  

Because even though I was still very confident,  

being bigger and you know, loved and rocked a  red carpet even though I was probably double  

the size and sometimes triple the weight of other  actresses, but I still felt confident in that.

But I knew deep down inside some of the emotional  eating behaviour I was doing was not healthy,  

like I did not need a tub of  ice cream every night. That was  

me, you know, numbing emotions using  food which wasn't the healthiest thing.

Was that dealing with fame?

I think, I think it was dealing with not being  a natural performer and having to perform  

almost every day and just things that I hadn't  kind of processed or dealt with in my life that  

was manifesting as emotional eating, and  I was like, that's not the healthiest.

This is when I first got pretty  famous after Pitch Perfect  

and I'm like, look at me, I'm rocking  a black leather bodysuit. Custom made.

I love that person, yeah she was  struggling with emotional eating but  

I also just love that girl and I love that  she was just out there living her best life,  

playing this character called Fat Amy and  just like getting out there and crushing it.

With the character of Fat Amy, there were those  sort of fat jokes that were made. Do you feel now 

you can't do that?

Well, see, I looked at Fat Amy and the Pitch  Perfect scripts and that's the best character,  

I personally thought. I would be  honored to play that character. I never  

thought of it as a negative because I'm a type  of person that… some people see being bigger as  

like a hindrance to being an actress and I go,  ‘I'm going to use it’, and use it for my comedy.

There were some people that said  ‘oh, will she not be funny now?’  

And I'm like, ‘well, check out my new movies in  a year. Coming out. See what you think, guys’.

What it has done career wise is just open up this  whole other door of dramatic roles, so now I've  

got this great movie that I just shot in the north  of England called The Almond and the Seahorse  

based on a West End play. Would I have been given  that role if I was big? I don't know, because  

people might still associate me too much with some  of the comedy roles, and physically transforming  

and giving a performance that is just so different  I think it helped to be looking different.

I'd be interested to know if you  

if you feel the pressure of being on a pedestal  when it comes to the body positivity movement.

Yeah, I guess, because I was somebody who was  like really advocating for loving yourself in  

whatever size. You want to like, love and  embrace yourself and be positive about your  

body as we are only given that body so that’s  what you've got to work with, that's your canvas.

But also, I don't want to be seen like promoting  unhealthiness or extremes, you know, and some of  

the things that I was doing, emotionally eating  and carrying the extra weight, was unhealthy. 

So what I'm trying to do is say  you can be whatever size you want,  

just try to be the healthiest version of you and  that can look different for different people.

You've shared your weight  loss journey on Instagram,  

you've got millions of followers on  social media. Are you conscious of  

the sorts of pressures I guess there are  for young women as well on social media?

Oh yeah, because now if you get into this culture  of touching up all your photos and whatever,  

it's unrealistic… I don't know, but then I'm  definitely guilty of posting the strapped photos  

on Instagram. Mainly 'cause I'm still single. So  I'm like ‘Oh yeah, OK’. That's mainly why I do it.