00:00All my life, I wanted to be pretty.
00:05I thought it would change everything.
00:07In the dystopian world of Uglies, appearance is everything, which is why star Joey King
00:12knew that now was the perfect time for the world to see this movie.
00:15Uglies was a big part of my life growing up.
00:17I read it for the first time when I was 11, and that book series in particular was huge
00:25for me.
00:26It hit me at the perfect age to take with me into my teens.
00:29The Netflix film is based on the 2005 sci-fi novel of the same name by Scott Westerfeld.
00:35Set in a futuristic world, citizens undergo cosmetic surgery once they're 16 to turn
00:39pretty and join the rest of society.
00:41They tell you what to do, and that's it.
00:44Paris?
00:45What are you doing here?
00:47I was worried.
00:48Things are just different here.
00:50You'll get it when you're pretty.
00:52King, along with stars Breanne Chu, Chase Stokes, Keith Powers, and Laverne Cox sat
00:57down with The Hollywood Reporter and opened up about working on the film, beauty standards
01:01in Hollywood, and more.
01:03Have you ever felt, in your life personally, and this goes for you too Breanne, have you
01:07ever felt the pressure to act or look a certain way in society?
01:12Yeah.
01:13Absolutely.
01:14I don't know anyone who hasn't felt that pressure.
01:18Absolutely.
01:19It doesn't matter whether you're in the public eye or you're just going to your first
01:22day of school or whatever.
01:24We all have our insecurities, and I think that just comes with growing up.
01:28It's hard.
01:29What do you do with all that information?
01:30We live in the age of information with social media, and it's hard.
01:37No one has really given us a guidebook on how to navigate that, and so in life it's
01:40trial and error.
01:42Definitely felt the pressures to look a certain way.
01:44In terms of the way I look, I think, yeah, for sure.
01:47There's a thing about being legible.
01:49I grew up not feeling beautiful at all and longing to be beautiful in the same, similar
01:54way that Tally longs to be beautiful.
01:56I've always wanted to be pretty, and I thought it would change everything, and I certainly
01:59had that, and I do feel pretty today.
02:04I feel beautiful today.
02:06When asked about director McG's comments about contemporary society being obsessed
02:10with image, the cast had this to say.
02:12I think sometimes I even find myself caught up in it, I think just naturally, just the
02:19pressure we've been put under with social media and stuff, and I think, in order to
02:26get better, I think it's just, it's like, first comes like self-awareness, I think,
02:31just being, like, knowing who you are, and knowing that, also just knowing that what
02:37you see on social media is not real, oral teeth on television.
02:40This perception of such a falsified reality that social media and the world is currently
02:45in is so tough, and I can't imagine being 15, 16, and even I'm guilty of it, like,
02:51I'm 31 years old playing a late teenager on a TV show, and the expectation of looking
02:57physically in a certain way at that age, I remember watching Dawson's Creek, and One
03:02Tree Hill, and all of these classic shows, and I'm like, why don't I look like that?
03:06It's just not authentic.
03:08And with the film set in a dystopian world, the cast revealed what they enjoyed most about
03:12filming and dished on the gadgets they'd want to take back with them in real life.
03:16It was fun.
03:17Yeah.
03:18I mean, we don't fight in person at all, like, in real life, so, I mean, it was...
03:19I was cracking up the whole time.
03:20Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:21We would do a take, and then I'd, like, be on my back, or Keith would be on his back,
03:22and we'd just be laughing about it.
03:23It was cold.
03:24It was.
03:25And we didn't, we don't have a lot of scenes together.
03:26No.
03:27You know what I'm saying?
03:28So, it felt good to finally, like, work that day with each other, you know what I'm saying?
03:29Other than that, it's more in passing.
03:30Anytime you get to kind of throw down with a friend like that, it's a weird bond that
03:31you build.
03:42Is there one gadget that either of you would want to, like, bring into the real world?
03:47Yes.
03:48Um, besides the hoverboard, duh.
03:50Duh.
03:51But, like, that's obvious.
03:52I think the, I think the interface ring is kind of cool, like, but it's a little, I could
03:57see myself, I could see that being a problem.
03:58I could become too obsessed with it.
04:00Exactly.
04:01I mean, like, just, like, any text message, just, like, but, like, we're kind of there
04:05anyway.
04:06Maybe the interface ring.
04:07That's true.
04:08I don't have, like, the toothbrush pill, except that I can use it to, like, kind of black
04:14out and my body will do a workout for me, and I can wake up and, like, workout done.
04:19Uglies is now streaming on Netflix.
04:21This is The Hollywood Reporter News.
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