Rebel Wilson revealed that she branded herself as the female version of American actor Jonah Hill at auditions in her early days in Hollywood.
In a fireside chat with Karen Ferry, the actress shared how she established, evolved, and moulded her brand throughout her career to marketers at Intuit Mailchimp’s FWD: Sydney conference on Wednesday.
Wilson recalled: “I only knew this one guy, Josh, who had gone to America and got booked a job, and he said: ‘whatever you do, you’ve got to sell yourself like nothing else.’ In Australia, we have a culture to be very humble. If you go into a Hollywood movie studio and do that, they will think you’re not very good. They won’t see that as being humble.”
“I thought, I’ll go over to Hollywood, and I’ll just say I’m the female Jonah Hill. It was a very small box, but that’s me. I felt like an idiot doing it. But I sold myself like you wouldn’t believe and on the second day in America, I had Jonah Hill’s agents, which was crazy.”
She shared that she continued to introduce herself to movie studios as the female Jonah Hill and within a few months booked herself a small part in 2011’s Bridesmaids after losing out to Melissa McCarthy.
“I just was added into scenes with no real lines and had to say stuff to get me in the movie. I was only in four scenes in the movie. Luckily on the back of Bridesmaids, I booked six movies as soon as that came out, and one of which was Pitch Perfect, which ended up being, like, the biggest blessing to me.”
Moulding her brand amid her life changes
Wilson also spoke about her 2020 Year of Health journey which she shared on her Instagram. During that year, she worked on her health and wellness, dropping 35kgs.
However, her decision to lose weight was met with judgement from her own team. “They basically said to me, ‘you’ll lose your whole fan base and your whole career if you do that.’
“For me, I didn’t want to be unhealthy. Otherwise, what was my other option? Be like a performer like John Candy, who dies an early death, and is hilarious, but is so unhealthy.”
She opted chose to live a healthier life and said that while the decision to give up the lucrative brand of the “fat, funny girl” was a risk, it has since allowed her to play different roles.
“I’ve just played the love interest to Kiefer Sutherland,” she shared.
Protecting her brand
Wilson also spoke candidly about her case against Bauer Media in which she sued the company for defamatory articles, which were published in 2015 around the time Pitch Perfect 2 was released.
“At 35 years old, I was the reigning comedy queen in America at that point and then I had these articles that came and they attacked the one thing that was so dear to me, which was my authenticity.”
Wilson told attendees the articles claimed that everything about her life was made up and a lie. To protect her brand, she took the media company to court to prove her case.
After her case, Wilson said her Australian agent told her she “walked a little taller” after going through the legal battle.
“I was someone who was always afraid to fight back or to fight back the negativity and I hadn’t had much negativity. That was like the first big thing.”
“It is very hard to have negative press, whether you’re a brand or a person, and you’ve just got to cling to what you are about.
“You’ve just got to stay true to what you are and know that always the cream always rises to the top in those situations. You have a great company, a great product, at the end of the day, it’s going to rise to the top.”
The freedom in making brand deals as Rebel the brand
Wilson revealed that she didn’t want to brand herself and wanted to follow in the steps of Toni Collette, who she described as a “chameleon actress”.
“I didn’t want to be what’s called a brand or a personality in America and then I realised you make a lot more money doing it. My agent has The Rock and he makes $20million dollars a film. I realised there’s something to it by expressing more of your real self and your personality to everyone.
“There used to be a criticism of that you’re not there for a true artist. I do multiple multi-million-dollar brand deals every year for different companies and to me that is a luxury because then it allows me to come to Australia for 18 months and work on The Deb, which was my passion program that started from my scholarship program.
“It’s like that kind of stuff that allows me now to do more interesting things but yeah, it was weird at first. I never wanted to be a brand and now I just gradually began accepting of it because actors who have a brand earn like a hundred times more money.”
Top image: Karen Ferry and Rebel Wilson