\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAlyson Stoner, the former child and teen actor from \u201cCheaper by the Dozen\u201d and \u201cCamp Rock\u201d who also had an acclaimed career as a dancer in the \u201cStep Up\u201d movies and various Missy Elliot music videos, is publishing a memoir this month about the highs and lows of her Hollywood career. In a new excerpt published by Vanity Fair, she reveals the brutal diet and exercise regimen she inflicted on herself amid an eating disorder to win the role of Katniss Everdeen in \u201cThe Hunger Games.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cKatniss was the ultimate role and the ultimate strong female lead: purpose-driven, sharp, athletic, and, thankfully, a heroine whose capacities were more important than physical beauty. But the role was playing with fire for me,\u201d Stoner writes. \u201cKatniss was characteristically thin\u2014not starving, but small enough to reflect growing up in an underfed district\u2014and muscular from hunting and archery. If I was going to devote myself to checking every box of the character description, I had to commit to strenuous training without fully succumbing to my eating disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStoner admits as a former Disney teen star that headlining \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d was a \u201clong shot,\u201d but she held onto hope because it wasn\u2019t too \u201cunrealistic for a director to pluck an unexpected person from the crowd and make them a star, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAt 17 years old, Stoner got approved to attend \u201ca world-renowned medical weight loss camp\u201d to help her get into Katniss Everdeen shape even though she was already drastically underweight. The program consisted of \u201ctwo weeks of seven hours of daily exercise on a calorie deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t recognize the irrational exceptions that doctors (and society) made for Hollywood, because it was all I knew,\u201d Stoner writes. \u201cEven at 10 years old, I had to get a medical physical before flying to film\u00a0\u2018Cheaper by the Dozen,\u2019 and an industry-referred doctor discovered a heart murmur. Upon sharing that I had dizzy spells and blackouts, he didn\u2019t mark anything on my file because it \u2018might stop the production company from letting you work.\u2019 I followed the doctor\u2019s orders and ignored the murmur like he did, deducing that Hollywood must exist above medicine, above the law, and even above common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cDoctors and trainers should\u2019ve never permitted an underweight minor to do seven hours of fourteen-mile hikes, heavy lifting, and high-intensity cardio,\u201d she continued about her \u201cHunger Games\u201d audition prep. \u201cBut all I had to say was that I was training for an acting role. They assessed me as mentally stable and opened the door. Then, on off days, I took myself (and all my mental stability) bouldering in a nearby forest to build tactical prowess like Katniss.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe brutal prep process Stoner put herself through backfired when she did not land the role. She reveals in the memoir that she was the last actor to audition for Katniss. While she was told to prepare three scenes from the script, one got cut in the audition room. She was quickly hurried out of the room with no feedback after she finished reading and waited days for the news to arrive as her \u201cbody entered starvation mode and screamed for calories.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAfter a week [of waiting to find out], I teetered past the edge of deprivation into a full-body emergency alarm for food,\u201d Stoner writes. \u201cI willed myself to slowly approach the pantry. I spread a modest amount of peanut butter on saltine crackers. 350 calories will be all right to add. But I was famished. An hour later, I rationed out a packet of sugar-free instant oatmeal and added protein powder. This should be enough. My stomach growled for more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStoner ended up going into a full binge, downing a \u201cpint of ice cream from the back of the freezer\u201d and \u201cwolfing down chips, popcorn, chocolate bars, and whatever was within reach until my jaw was too sore to chew. With pants unbuttoned, I completed the biggest binge of my life and faded into delirium on the couch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cTwelve hours later, I awoke to a revolting migraine and lethargy. Somehow, I was still craving sugar. But before I could think about spoiling another day, I had to face the self-inflicted damage of the night before,\u201d she continues. \u201cYou\u2019re probably up three pounds, but it\u2019s your fault and you\u2019re going to have to fix it. When I stepped onto the scale, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. What the hell? I gained back every single pound I lost over two months? In a few hours?! It was my worst nightmare. My body had held on to every morsel of food and liquid ounce, unsure when it would be fed again. All my progress was erased.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSoon after the call came in from \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d team informing Stoner that she was not getting the role of Katniss Everdeen. She concluded: \u201cI sat on my bed with vacant eyes and a distant mind. I didn\u2019t know what to do with myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStoner\u2019s memoir, \u201cSemi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything,\u201d publishes Aug. 12. Head over to Vanity Fair\u2019s website to read \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d excerpt in its entirety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alyson Stoner, the former child and teen actor from \u201cCheaper by the Dozen\u201d and \u201cCamp Rock\u201d who also had an acclaimed career as a dancer in the \u201cStep Up\u201d movies and various Missy Elliot music videos, is publishing a memoir this month about the highs and lows of her Hollywood career. In a new excerpt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[8022,6509,2919,378,5349,988,5077,8023,2192],"class_list":{"0":"post-14378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-alyson","9":"tag-audition","10":"tag-camp","11":"tag-games","12":"tag-hunger","13":"tag-loss","14":"tag-prep","15":"tag-stoners","16":"tag-weight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}