‘Real Housewives of New Jersey’ star Melissa Gorga filmed a segment for ‘Entertainment Tonight’ on Monday where she strapped on a fat suit to appear as a 300 lb. woman. From Gwyneth Paltrow to Tom Cruise, see stars whose roles required extra rolls.
Real Housewives of New Jersey star Melissa Gorga wore very little during her first season on the Bravo series this year. But the sexy reality star recently stepped into a fat suit to make it look like she weighed 300 pounds to film a segment for Entertainment Tonight. Dressed in a hot pink jump suit with a prosthetic double chin and glasses in New York’s Time Square, Gorga hailed a taxi and ordered one of the city’s famous hot dogs. No word yet on what the purpose of the shoot was, but the aspiring pop star, who recorded her now-infamous single “On Display,” teased her Twitter fans: “I will say, you will be seeing me again soon, can't wait to tell u all about...#nextweek”
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What would Doogie Howser say? The medical prodigy once played by Harris would probably take the actor's new character, Barney Stinson, to task for the serious gain in weight occasioned by Barney's relationship with Robin in How I Met Your Mother. The diagnosis: "Relationship gut," says series co-creator Carter Bays. "It's a phenomenon that a lot of people can relate to."
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Gwyneth Paltrow traded in her Shakespeare in Love corset for a 25-pound fat suit—complete with latex makeup—for the 2001 Farrelly brothers comedy Shallow Hal, an experience she described as “incredibly isolating.” “Nobody would even make eye contact with me,” Paltrow said. “Like, nobody would even look in my direction.” Except for, of course, Jack Black’s character, who ended up falling for Rosemary by the end of the film.
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Proving the enduring appeal of young men dressing up as old—and large—women, Big Momma’s House was a big hit in 2000, earning more than $100 million at the box office and spawning a sequel, Big Momma’s House 2, for which Lawrence’s FBI agent suited up again as the Southern grandma.
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The makeup for Martin Short’s trademark character, Jiminy Glick, originally developed in skits on The Martin Short Show before moving into the spotlight on Primetime Glick, took about an hour and a half to put on, jowls and all. No wonder Short said he could “really lose [himself] in this character.” Even Glick’s band leader (played by Michael McKean) would tell the clumsy interviewer, “You are fat… sloppy fat.”
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Only the logic of sitcom writing would force one of television’s skinniest actresses into one of TV’s most famous fat suits. But Courteney Cox, playing obsessive-compulsive chef Monica Gellar as both a svelte adult and (in flashback videos) a portly teenager, seemed to enjoy it: She was well-known for performing a dance in the fat suit to warm up the show’s audience. Monica’s voracious appetite became a long-running joke on the series, and was the reason she became a chef.
Chris Haston / NBCU Photo Bank; AP Photo
If Mike Myers’ Fat Bastard get-up isn’t the best-known fat suit of the last decade, it’s certainly the grossest. Myers’ hairy, greasy, Chili’s jingle-singing obese Scotsman was one of three roles the comedian played in two Austin Powers movies, and by far the most time-consuming. Myers joked that it took “about 64 hours” to put on all that makeup.
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Which other supermodel would go to such lengths to see how someone else lives? Tyra learned how it would feel to be 350 pounds on a segment for her talk show in 2005, where she went on three blind dates, and one gentleman (who didn’t know she was famous) was “outright rude and hurtful.” In the end, though, Tyra had the luxury of shedding those pounds in just a few minutes. We should all be so lucky.
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Everyone knew John Travolta could sing and dance, thanks to his roles in Grease and Saturday Night Fever. But who knew he could pull it off while wearing a fat suit—and high heels? Before playing reclusive mother Edna Turnblad in the 2007 musical, Hairspray, Travolta says he was warned by fellow fat-suit veteran Martin Lawrence that the experience was “hell on wheels,” but that, ultimately, “being Edna was fun.”
Eddie Murphy holds the distinction of being this era’s foremost practitioner of the fat suit. Between his multiple-role, multiple-fat-suit stint in both Nutty Professor movies, and his performance as “Rasputia Latimore” in Norbit, the comic is taking the fat suit boldly into the 21st century.
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The sweet romantic comedy Just Friends put a new twist on the usual ploy of “sexy-character-flashes-back-to-obese-past” use of the fat suit by casting—can you hear the glass ceiling shatter?—a man as the former fatty. And not just any man! Scarlett Johansson’s six-packed husband Ryan Reynolds put on the phony pudge in 2005 to portray a once-fat, now-fly music executive.
New Line Cinema / Everett Collection; AP Photo
Death might become Goldie Hawn in this 1992 movie, but the fat suit certainly didn’t. Hawn’s character, Helen Sharp, became a depressed overeater after her fiancé (Bruce Willis) rejects her for a glamorous actress (Meryl Streep) in the dark comedy. She only appears in a handful of scenes, but they’re still memorable 17 years later.
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For obesity makeup scholars, Terry Jones’ role in 1983’s Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life is the ne plus-size ultra. Jones’ turn as the greedy Mr. Creosote is so sickeningly memorable, partly because of the vomiting—but more because of the bizarre and offensively huge fat suit.
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