Kate Beckinsale has revealed how Pearl Harbour director Michael Bay felt she didn’t fit the body type he was looking for and ordered her to lose weight if she wanted the role. Speaking on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ Beckinsale also said that the director constantly said she was cast because she wasn't “so attractive” during the promotion of the film.

Kate BeckinsaleKate Beckinsale says she was told to ‘work out’ for Pearl Harbour role.

“I don’t think I fitted the type of actress Michael Bay, the director, had met before. I think he was baffled by me because my boobs weren’t bigger than my head and I wasn’t blonde,” Beckinsale said.

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“I’d just had my daughter and had lost weight but was told that if I got the part I’d have to work out and I just didn’t understand why a 1940s nurse would do that.” Then once filming wrapped Beckinsale said the director went on to refer to her as not “so attractive” during  promotional interviews.

“When we were promoting the film, Michael was asked why he had chosen Ben [Affleck] and Josh [Hartnett], and he said, 'I have worked with Ben before and I love him, and Josh is so manly and a wonderful actor',“ Beckinsale said.

“Then when he was asked about me, he'd say, ‘Kate wasn't so attractive that she would alienate the female audience’. He kept saying it everywhere we went, and we went to a lot of places.” Beckinsale’s comments certainly check out. In a 2001 interview with Movieline the director said he cast her in the film because she wasn’t “too beautiful”.

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“I didn't want someone who was too beautiful,” Bay said. “Women feel disturbed when they see someone's too pretty. I'm not saying Kate's not pretty. When you look at Titanic, Kate Winslet is pretty, but not overwhelmingly beautiful. That makes it work better for women.”