Lili Reinhart has opened up about an acting note from a male director that she says hit a nerve — and it didn’t sit well with her co-stars either.
The 29-year-old actor is widely known for roles in Riverdale, Hustlers, and Hal & Harper. She’s also part of the cast of the new horror film Forbidden Fruits, which arrived in theaters on March 27.
During press for the movie — which currently holds a 75 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes — the cast took part in a Cosmopolitan video where they posed questions to one another.
Reinhart appears in the film with Victoria Pedretti (known for You and The Haunting), Lola Tung from The Summer I Turned Pretty, and Anyone But You star Alexandra Shipp.
At one point, Reinhart was asked whether she’d ever received a note about her performance that felt personal.
She then described an interaction she said stayed with her: “When I had a male director come up to me and silently lean over and go, ‘Just suck in your stomach a little bit.'”
Her castmates reacted with immediate outrage, urging her to identify the filmmaker — something Reinhart chose not to do. Pedretti pressed further, asking: “What is his address?”
Tung also jumped in and suggested it was ‘time for a hex’.
The moment, which Cosmopolitan posted to TikTok, spread quickly — and Pedretti’s response became a major talking point in the comments.
“That wasn’t Victoria, that was Love Quinn,” one viewer wrote, referring to Pedretti’s character in You.
“Victoria turning into Love for a second lol,” another commented, while someone else added: “Love Quinn popped out real quick.”
Others circulated a recent photo of Reinhart wearing a shirt with the phrase ‘I support a man’s right to shut the f**k up’ — with some joking about adding it to their own wardrobes.
Not everyone agreed the director’s comment was out of line, though. A number of people argued they would have preferred the same kind of feedback.
One person wrote: “Um if my stomach was sticking out, I’d want someone to let me know tho [sic].”
Another added: “Nothing wrong with that,” before continuing: “Filmmaking is a directors medium and he has a vision of how his film should look like.”
A third insisted: “Tbh i am a actress and I would be happy if a director told me this,”
Reinhart’s story echoes similar experiences other actresses have described. Kate Winslet previously said she was encouraged to conceal her ‘belly rolls’ while working on Lee, in which she played photographer Elizabeth Lee Miller.
Speaking to the BBC, Winslet said women shouldn’t feel pressured to erase natural features, urging people to embrace ‘being a real shape, being soft and maybe having a few extra rolls’.
She also recounted a specific moment from the set: “There’s a bit where Lee’s sitting on a bench in a bikini… And one of the crew came up between takes and said: ‘You might want to sit up straighter.’ ‘So you can’t see my belly rolls? Not on your life!’ It was deliberate, you know?”