Julia Stiles has admitted that she struggled with disordered eating due to pressures within the industry.
The 10 Things I Hate About You star has revealed that she was "always worried" about gaining weight in her early years as an actress.
"In my twenties and early thirties, being an actress, there was so much focus on your appearance and how you're going to fit into certain clothes," she explained in the latest episode of the How to Fail With Elizabeth Day podcast.
"I'm not the first person to say this - and even coming from a mother who never emphasised those things - food and all that stuff was so stressful," the 44-year-old continued. "I couldn't help but have a disordered relationship with it all."
Stiles then clarified that, although she did struggle with her eating habits, she was never diagnosed with an eating disorder.
"I'm not talking about an eating disorder - it was just restrictive, regimented, stressful," she told the podcast host. "I always worried that it was going to be out of my control. Like, what if I gain weight?"
The Bourne Identity star also noted that actresses are often expected to wear smaller clothing sizes on the red carpet.
"As an actress, we go and promote on a red carpet, and we have to wear sample sizes from fashion designers," she stated. "So it's always, 'Are we going to fit into the sample size?'"
Stiles then recalled that Julia Roberts once shared some words of wisdom with her on the set of their 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile.
"She was an amazing example for us, and she was so maternal with all the young women on that set," she remembered. "She was coming from a lot of experience of being not just a woman, but also a woman where your appearance is focused on so heavily."
The Save the Last Dance star continued, "She said to us, 'You're going to look back on these photos of you in your twenties and be like, I was beautiful - why didn't I see that?' And she's totally right!"
