The Zoey Galaxy: February 2014

Friday, February 14, 2014

Zoey Deutch’s Body Is Just Fine for ‘Vampire Academy,’ Thank You Very Much

When word first broke that she would be taking on the lead role in the adaptation of Richelle Mead’s popular “Vampire Academy” books, the announcement was met with mixed feelings. While some were excited about the “Beautiful Creatures” actress stepping into Rose Hathaway’s ass-kicking shoes, others worried she wasn’t quite what they expected.

After all, Rose is described as curvy and Zoey … isn’t.

“The fans were really upset that I don’t have big boobs. That was a huge issue for them,” the 19-year-old said during New York Comic Con. “Hopefully they can get over it, but it was a genuine problem.”

“Rose’s casting did concern me … Rose isn’t waifish,” insisted one commenter on a Young Adult fiction blog. “She’s just too small and Rose is supposed to be athletic and curvy,” wrote another. One more insisted, “Deutch looks way too sweet and too slim to pull of Rose’s toughness and great body.”

Again, here we are, judging a teenage girl’s body. But Deutch took the chatter with class and perspective.

“It is a little intrusive, certainly, that they all of a sudden feel like they have permission to pick apart my physical being,” she told Yahoo Movies. “I see all these things and it kinda just doesn’t affect me that much, honestly. That’s maybe even more worrisome than being affected by it. I just expect certain things. I know this is going to happen. I understand why it happens.”

It’s that very understanding and thick skin that’s helped Zoey not take it personally when devout fans of the books are taking apart every frame of the teaser trailer and even the posters. And she knows it will carry her through as the movie is released and inevitably nitpicked.

“In high school, I tried very hard to make everybody like me, which resulted in me being extremely unhappy and in a lot of pain,” she explained. “Therefore, the lesson I got from that was that I can’t make everybody happy. This movie can’t make everybody happy. The wide range of fans for this book and hopefully now the film are passionate, which is a fantastic, fantastic thing to be but, with that comes a negative element, I’m sure, as well that they’re going to be extremely critical. Which is fine. You expect that.”

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