Aidy Bryant: Shrill's Season 3 premiere was inspired by a doctor recommending that I should get gastric bypass surgery

The Washington Post

The final season premiere is based on Bryant's experience when she was examined by a doctor as part of the insurance process for the 2016 film The Big Sick. The doctor told her “people do it all the time" while recommending gastric bypass. “Their assumption is that I have that as a goal, and just by looking at me, they assume that’s the reason I’m there at the doctor’s office,” Bryant tells The Washington Post. “And there’s an assumption that if you’re fat, you’ve given up on yourself. And it’s like, I exercise all the time. I don’t eat doughnuts for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Bryant has been using Shrill to combat fat stereotypes -- and trying to avoid linking any of her problems with her weight “Where you find the laughs is a choice, and I think she knows how she can get laughs without being in some way hurtful,” says SNL's Lorne Michaels, who produces Shrill. There is also an answer for one of Bryant’s pet peeves: the fat lady sex scene. “I can think of about a million examples, and I won’t name names, where sex between a plus-sized woman and a man is represented by her jumping on him and then he falls over,” she says. “That’s a classic. And there’s something so demeaning and devastating about that to me. It feels like trying to joke it away rather than sincerely finding an actual funny moment. In a normal sex scene between two normal-sized people, you could still find comedy in that. And I think our show does.” Bryant, who had never done sex scenes before, worked with costume designer Amanda Needham to develop specific wardrobe items so she could feel more comfortable in front of the camera. Still, the scenes required Bryant to show herself in a way that’s not typical for plus-sized women on TV.