{"id":199782,"date":"2019-01-29T01:38:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T06:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=199782"},"modified":"2019-01-29T01:38:03","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T06:38:03","slug":"brittany-runs-a-marathon-gives-jillian-bell-the-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/01\/29\/brittany-runs-a-marathon-gives-jillian-bell-the-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ gives Jillian Bell the spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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But she found that she related to Brittany. She felt real to her. Because she kind of was. The character was inspired by one of Colaizzo’s college friends and former roommates. (File Photo<\/a>: @jillianbell\/Instagram<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PARK CITY, Utah \u2014 When Jillian Bell is offered roles that have to do with body issues, they usually fall into two buckets: They’re either making fun of the character’s weight, or, they’re not presenting it in a way that she finds compelling or authentic.<\/p>\n

It’s why when she read the script for \u201cBrittany Runs a Marathon,\u201d which premiered Monday at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival , she kind of couldn’t believe it. The film, from writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, was about a woman in her 20s living a fun, but not necessarily healthy, life who turns things around when she decides to start running. It’s a charming and inspirational film from the first-time director that co-stars Lil Rel Howery and Michaela Watkins. The filmmakers are currently looking for distribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have wasted so much time in my life thinking negatively or consuming my day with body image,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI’m lucky I’ve had great movies come my way that had nothing to do with it. But I have had a lot of other offers that do have a lot to do with body image and what people think \u2014 and it’s a weird thing to talk about \u2014 but what they think a person like me is worth. I joke about this but, like, if you have a body that looks like mine, you’re not worthy of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she found that she related to Brittany. She felt real to her. Because she kind of was. The character was inspired by one of Colaizzo’s college friends and former roommates.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was in her 20s working in theatre and living her best life in maybe the wrong sense of the word. And there was a shift around the time when I moved in where she started to realize she wants something else,\u201d Colaizzo said. \u201cShe started running and by the time she was out of the apartment, she had lost 80 pounds, had a new job and was working her way out of debt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the real Brittany is married and works in genocide prevention, which, he laughed is, \u201cToo good. If you put it in a movie you wouldn’t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell, in one of her first dramatic performances and leading film roles, experienced her own sort of transformation during production. She realized that she did enjoy more dramatic material, as taxing as all the crying was. And she lost 40 pounds \u2014 the last 11 pounds during filming.<\/p>\n

\u201cI trained beforehand because I did almost zero per cent exercise before this film came along,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI actually looked up something on Pinterest that was like how to train from couch to 5K. It was intense, but I wanted to go through the whole experience of what she went through.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARK CITY, Utah \u2014 When Jillian Bell is offered roles that have to do with body issues, they usually fall …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","mauthors-lindsey-bahr","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}