14 DAY TRIAL // In the time he has been out of the spotlight, which has been considerable taking into account the fact that he hasn't been seen in public since October 2013, comedic actor Zach Galifianakis has been working hard at slimming down his chubby appearance.
The actor came out in public on the red carpet for the first time in a year and he looked like a changed man. At the screening of “Birdman Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance,” photographers were able to recognize him only by his signature locks and beard, because his pudgy physique was all but gone.
Galifianakis is tired of fame, says Hollywood is exaggerating the price of fame
Zach explained his long hiatus from the red carpet on a very biting interview with the Hollywood Reporter, where he proceeded to blast Hollywood and the way it elates famous people, making them seem bigger than life, both to them and to the general public.
“They oversell it like we're curing cancer, you know what I mean?” Zach said when speaking about fame. In a decisively anti-Hollywood attitude, he added, “I just think it can be gross sometimes, the way Hollywood congratulates itself all the time.”
The actor's view on the current movie industry mirrors perfectly the message that transpires from Alejandro G. Inarritu's movie which aims to paint the same dramatic yet funny portrait of how we idolize actors and turn them into social symbols when they're actually just normal people.
Galifianakis made the same point by giving his two cents on the matter, “It's gotten a little out of hand – there's no culture in it. If people were writing about poets, mathematicians and all that, that would just move us forward quicker.”
The “Hangover” actor seems to have willingly chosen his exile from public life and has focused on getting healthy both physically and mentally in the meantime. He came back to the limelight to support a project that he thinks illustrates perfectly his own opinions on the matter.
Zach says he'd rather be just an actor, not a celebrity
He went on to warn that his days as a celebrity were numbered. “Being a celebrity is [expletive] – it's dumb, and I'm not interested in it. I like to be an actor, and that's it. The blurred line are, I think man-made. I'd rather just do my work and go home and watch Lifetime,” he says.
Coming from an actor who has enjoyed international fame and has been part of some major Hollywood projects and blockbusters, this scathing discourse comes as a major slap in the face of the industry, but more and more actors are taking up this side, which points to a growing trend that will, hopefully, lead to some change in the future.