Sometimes sporty people snub their noses at other activities they just don’t understand, such as cheer, dance, and musical theater. Being a dancer in a Broadway show is no joke and requires one to be able to dance for long periods of time. Rebel Wilson knows this firsthand from starring in the movie version of the musical Cats.
Rebel opened up to Entertainment Tonight about her experiences on set. She praised the dancers in the film. She revealed her dancing caused her to lose 8 pounds in just four days of filming. Beyond all the physical exertion, the set was kept warm to help the dancers’ muscles remain loose. It was a sweaty good time, for sure.
In the film, Rebel played Jennyanydots who performs the song "The Old Gumbie Cat." Filming it was not easy. “I lost 8 pounds, shooting my number, in four days. One, because there's a lot of physicalities … but also, they heated up the set very high, to almost 100 [degrees] Fahrenheit, so that we could never cool down,” she recalled.
There was a reason that the set was kept so hot. It was for the sake of the talented dancers. “These people are, like, the best dancers in the whole world, so they can't cool their muscles down or they could get an injury and they'd be out of the film. So they'd heat up the set like a sauna so we would never cool down, but [it] made it pretty uncomfortable,” she admitted.
More from LittleThings: Rebel Wilson Says Her Own Team Argued Against Her Losing Weight And Shedding Bad Habits
Unfortunately for Rebel, all her hard work did not exactly pay off. The film was largely dragged by critics. The Guardian's Simran Hans called the film a “clear career low” for everyone except Taylor Swift. Sheila O'Malley of Rogerebert.com sums it up nicely. "Cats features grown humans crawling around in furry suits pretending to be cats. There are some who will find this unbearably silly. Embarrassing even.” Oh well — You can’t win them all, Rebel.
