The overweight sidekick is a longstanding trope in movies and TV shows. From John Belushi popping a “zit” in Animal House to Chris Farley performing his “Fat Guy in a Little Coat” routine in Tommy Boy, it’s the chubby guy’s job to provide hefty doses of comic relief.



But ever wonder what it’s like to audition for parts that explicitly call for fat actors? Especially if you don’t think of yourself as a joke?



“When you’re starting out, you do feel like you have to take any gig that’ll come down the pipe,” admits Charley Koontz, who first broke out playing “Fat Neil” on Community and now stars in CSI: Cyber. “There have been a couple of parts—without naming shows—that you read and go, this is just so gratuitous, mean, and ugly.”



It was a similar experience for Joel Marsh Garland, whose gig as a prison guard on Orange is the New Black expanded significantly in the Netflix comedy’s recent third season. “You’d get a casting breakdown where the whole joke was just about being a fat guy—like ‘Fat Guy in a Chimney,’” he says.



In the early days, Garland took a few of those roles to prove he could remember lines when he got in front of the camera. “And being able to pay your bills and get a couple residual checks is tempting,”

he says.



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But at a certain point, ‘Fat Guy in a Chimney’ stopped being interesting to Garland, and his line was drawn in the sand. Adrian Martinez, a veteran character actor who has appeared in everything from American Hustle to Inside Amy Schumer, had this realization right away.



“I’m not going to sit in a vat of mayonnaise and be a fat joke from beginning to middle to end,” says Martinez. “There has to be something in there that you can hang your creative hat on.”



That “something” is often subjective. Earlier this year, Martinez starred in the con-man flick Focus alongside Will Smith and Margot Robbie. His role: a 500-pound Persian named “Fatass Farhad.”



Comedian Artie Lange, who was also offered the part, publicly called the role an offensive stereotype. But Martinez saw an opportunity to be more than a punchline.



“Initially when you read ‘Fatass Farhad,’ you’re like, ‘Aw, c’mon, really?’, but then you read the script, and the whole fat thing is 5 percent of it,” Martinez says. “There are a couple of fat jokes in the movie, but it was a great opportunity to work with A-list talents and in exotic locales. And now I have Margot Robbie’s email.”



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These Hollywood heavyweights know their place in show business. “There are certain opportunities as a big guy that you don’t get,” says Garland. Adds Koontz, “I’m just never going to be able to separate what I do from how I look.”



But they refuse to be defined—or boxed in—by their body type.



“I’ve always felt that my weight does not get me work—my talent does,” Martinez says. “Otherwise they could do casting at the food court in a mall.”



And it’s a good lesson for everyone, in any job: Sometimes you take the gig for the opportunity to show what you can do on a bigger stage. Signing up for every menial task, like fetching coffee and making copies, helps you build a dependable reputation around the office. Over time, you’ll become the go-to guy—and that’s what really pays.

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