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,
00:11which is why star Joey King knew 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,
00:19and I mean that book series in particular just was like huge for me.
00:25It hit me at the perfect age to take with me into like my teens.
00:28The Netflix film is based on the 2005 sci-fi novel of the same name by Scott Westerfeld.
00:34Set in a futuristic world, citizens undergo cosmetic surgery once they're 16 to turn pretty
00:39and join the rest of society.
00:42They tell you what to do, and that's it.
00:45Paris?
00:46What 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 Brianne Chu, Chase Stokes, Keith Powers, and Laverne Cox
00:57sat down with The Hollywood Reporter and opened up about working on the film,
01:01beauty standards in Hollywood, and more.
01:03Have you ever felt in your life personally, and this goes for you too, Brianne,
01:07have you ever felt the pressure to act or look a certain way in society?
01:13Yeah.
01:13Absolutely.
01:14I don't know anyone who hasn't felt that pressure.
01:18Absolutely.
01:18Whether it doesn't matter whether you're in the public eye or you're just like going
01:21to your first day of school or whatever.
01:23Like, you know, we all have our insecurities, and I think that just comes with like growing
01:28up.
01:28It's hard.
01:29What do you do with all that information?
01:30We live in like the age of information with like social media, and it's hard.
01:35We don't, no one has really given us a guidebook on how to navigate that.
01:39And so in life, it's trial and error.
01:41Definitely 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.
02:00And I do feel pretty today.
02:04I feel beautiful today.
02:06When asked about director McG's comments about contemporary society being obsessed with
02:10image, the cast had this to say.
02:12I think sometimes I even find myself, you know, caught up in it.
02:15You know, I think just naturally, just the pressure we've been put under with social media
02:22and stuff.
02:22And I think in order to get better, I think it's just, it's like first comes like self-awareness.
02:30I think just being, like, knowing who you are and knowing that, also just knowing that
02:37what you see on social media is not real.
02:39Or on TV, on television.
02:40This perception of such a falsified reality that social media in the world is currently
02:45in is so tough.
02:47And I can't imagine being 15, 16.
02:50And even I'm guilty of it.
02:51Like, I'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.
03:00I remember watching Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill and all of these classic shows.
03:04I'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 dish on the gadgets they'd want to take back with them in real life.
03:16It was fun.
03:17Yeah.
03:17I mean, we don't fight in person at all, like in real life.
03:20I mean, I was cracking up the whole time.
03:22Yeah, yeah.
03:22We would do a take, and then I'd, like, be on my back, or Keith would be on his back.
03:26We'd just be laughing about it.
03:27It was cold.
03:28It was.
03:29And we didn't, we don't have a lot of scenes together.
03:31No.
03:31You know what I'm saying?
03:32So it felt good to finally, like, work that day with each other.
03:35You know what I'm saying?
03:36Other than that, it's more in passing.
03:37Anytime you get to kind of throw down with a friend like that.
03:41And we get weird.
03:41Bond that you build.
03:42Is there one gadget that either of you would want to, like, bring into the real world?
03:47Yes.
03:47Um, besides the hoverboard, duh.
03:50Duh.
03:50But, like, that's obvious.
03:52I think the, I think the interface ring is kind of cool.
03:55Like, but it's a little, I could see myself, I could see that being a problem.
03:58I could become too obsessive with it.
04:00Exactly.
04:00I could be, like, just, like, any text message, just, like, but, like, we're kind of there anyway.
04:05Maybe the interface ring.
04:06I've been saying that, like, the toothbrush pill, except that I can use it to, like, kind of black out and my body will do a workout for me.
04:16And 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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