Entertainment

Lily Collins Opens Up About Eating Disorder After Playing Woman With Anorexia

by Taylor Ortega
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Lily Collins is just one of the estimated eight million Americans who knows how it feels to suffer from an eating disorder, and she's getting closure in a pretty badass way.

The Golden Globe nominee's upcoming film, “To The Bone,” tells the story of a young girl's experience battling anorexia.

Lily bonded with director Marti Noxon over their similar histories struggling with eating disorders.

The "unREAL" co-creator previously tackled mental health issues on her Lifetime series, following Shiri Appleby's character's balance of constant work and unspecified mental illness.

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The storyline of "To The Bone," as well as its dark humor, allowed the 27-year-old to open up to fans about her past.

She told the Hollywood Reporter,

[Eating disorders were] something that I went through as a teenager and that I had never spoken about and I thought this would be an amazing way for me to almost face a fear, and to go through it again, but to tell a greater story… to really open up a conversation among young girls and guys.

Though eating disorders — which, according to ANAD, have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness — and their portrayal in media are generally grim, Lily said the tone of the film acknowledges the lighter moments of the struggle as well.

I feel that the way it was written and told are really only ways that it could be told by people -- or someone -- who had actually gone through it themselves because there is a sense of weird humor we use in it… It doesn't make it too, for a lack of a better word, weighty.

"To The Bone" makes its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

With such a massive portion of the population hoping to see their story responsibly told with heart and humor, it should be interesting to see how "To The Bone" delivers.

Citations: Lily Collins' New Project Uncovers Her Personal Connection To Eating Disorders (Refinery29)