Rebel Wilson has a new interview with The Telegraph to support her supporting role in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, as well as her role on the London stage in a revival of Guys and Dolls. It’s a pretty far-ranging interview, and the Telegraph gets Rebel on the record about almost everything. I go back and forth on Rebel – there are times when I think her shtick is tired and sometimes even offensive, but then there are times when I’m really glad that she’s finding success and that she’s doing her thing. In this interview, I’m back to liking her, probably because she’s given the space the explain herself and talk about how her comedy has evolved and how it will keep evolving. You can read the full interview here. Some highlights:

She’s never been to the Oscars: “I have never been invited to the Oscars because, as you know, they are racists.”

Her breakout in Bridesmaids: “I really could have ended up having zero lines in that… It did pop, and people went: ‘She’s interesting. We want to see more of that girl.’ And one of the movies I got from that was Pitch Perfect, which turned out to be a mega franchise… I think a lot of the reason I get hired is because they know I’m going to embellish the script. And I kind of think in Hollywood, if you don’t have that ability, you’re not going to last too long in comedies. You can be a dramatic actor, fine – it’s not like you’re going to be improvising: ‘Oh my god, I killed my son’. But in comedies, if you’re not adding, you’re probably going to be a bit forgotten, in the edit.”

She trained as a lawyer & she draws up her own contracts so she owns her characters: “People just don’t think. Even though this is a creative field, it is a business. When you looked at the actors around me at the Australian Theatre for Young People, I wouldn’t have thought I was the most talented. But I was definitely unique, and I definitely had the entrepreneurial brains.”

Transitioning into drama: “So, like, I have to transition into drama because I can’t f—ing win an Oscar for Pitch Perfect 3, can I?”

She thinks she gets more laughs when she’s bigger: “There’s something about me that people like laughing at,” she says. But if she was going to be funny, then she had to be the funniest. At the time, her build was athletic – she played tennis, and had strong arms, she says, but she wasn’t particularly fat. When she wrote her first play, she cast alongside herself another girl, who was bigger than her. “And I was like: ‘Oh. That girl’s getting a lot of laughs, a lot easier than me. What is it?’ Because I don’t think there’s much difference in talent. And I remember distinctly thinking: ‘I think it’s because she’s fatter’. And then, I don’t know if it was mega-conscious, but I thought: ‘How can I get more laughs? Maybe if I was a bit fatter…’ And then suddenly I was fatter, and doing comedy.”

An advantage in her size: “I saw my size as being an advantage whereas so many women see it as a disadvantage”.

Why she lied about her age (she’s 35): “Hollywood IS age-ist. That’s why people do crazy s— to their faces – out of desperation to look younger. But I think my career is based more on my personality, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Offensive jokes: “I used to make so many midget jokes. And I also used to make a lot of jokes about real people. I used to make jokes about Jennifer Lopez all the time. And then I was like: what if one day I see her? I guess because when you’re starting out you never think you’re going to run into these people. Now I run into them all the time.”

Whether British people are sexually repressed: “British people are definitely more repressed, because I’ve been living in America, where people will just say whatever. But sexually? Not after a few drinks. Idris Elba asked for my phone number after that [joke about “diverse members”]. But he never called me. It’s fine. I’ve got other options, Idris. Maybe I’ll meet Prince Harry. He’s still available.”

[From The Telegraph]

I think she’s dead-on about “repressed” British people, in that Americans will say anything and talk about really detailed sexual stuff over brunch where British people are more repressed in their conversation. But yes, get a few drinks in a British person and all of that repression falls away. As for what she says about being funnier when she’s bigger… I don’t know, I really don’t. I think being “the bigger comedienne” is part of her brand at this point, and it goes part and parcel with her confidence. That’s what makes it funny and politically disruptive.

Photos courtesy of WENN.