Brandon Sklenar Opens Up for the First Time About His Lifelong Experience with Body Dysmorphia: ‘It Became a Kind of Obsession’

NEED TO KNOW

• Brandon Sklenar discussed his personal journey with self-image and body dysmorphia in a new interview

• The actor faced some of his long-held fears regarding his body image in a new movie, Iron Jane, with Eiza González, in which they both portray bodybuilders

• “It’s very much an ongoing process,” Sklenar said, regarding how he copes with dysmorphia

Brandon Sklenar is opening up about his own experience with body dysmorphia as he begins to promote an upcoming movie set in the world of bodybuilding.

Sklenar, 36, told The Hollywood Reporter that he has struggled with his body image throughout his life in an interview published Tuesday, Nov. 10, while discussing Iron Jane, an upcoming movie he stars in with Eiza González.

In the movie, Sklenar plays a coach who works with an up-and-coming bodybuilder named Janie John (González, also 36). Sklenar, who worked at a gym in northern New Jersey as a teenager, said he “understood this world very specifically” after spending a significant amount of time around bodybuilders.

“There is an element of Iron Jane that really goes into body image and body dysmorphia, which is something that I just really feel needs to be talked about more, especially in this age of social media and fitness influencers,” he said. “This is something I’ve struggled with, so we really wanted to translate that, and [writer-director] Lissette [Feliciano] was really open to working with me on getting across [my character] Josh’s dysmorphia and what he goes through.”

When asked if he felt comfortable discussing his personal experience with dysmorphia, Sklenar revealed that he has struggled with his body image since he was a child.

“I was a little kid — short, chunky. I swam in a T-shirt and got made fun of. Then I had a growth spurt and became really lanky, and I got made fun of for that,” he recalled. “So I started training a lot and got obsessed with working out, like, ‘I’ll show them.’ And then it became a kind of obsession, and it becomes a very weird thing, where you see yourself completely differently than pretty much anybody else does, and usually in not a good way.”

“It’s very much an ongoing process. Therapy helps for sure,” Sklenar said. “If you look at me now as a 36-year-old man, you’d never guess it, but I still very much feel like that 12-year-old chunky kid — that sense of nothing is ever good enough.”

An official synopsis for Iron Jane reads that while González’s character quickly rises through the ranks in the world of female bodybuilders, her “grip on reality fractures, her identity dissolving into the version the world and her coach demand.”

“You have to find a way to check your self-talk, because that’s really where it begins and ends — but it’s easier said than done,” Sklenar added, regarding his own experience with his body image.

In addition to the new movie, Sklenar told THR that he recently “got massive” for a different film he will star in during 2027 titled F.A.S.T.

For Iron Jane, he told the outlet he felt “so nervous” when he had to film a scene that required his whole body to appear “fully on display” in a specific pose.

“Dealing with my issues, it was very challenging to work through that. But at the same time, I was thinking about Eiza, because she had to do that the entire f—ing film,” he added. “Every scene is about her body on some level. So, I was like, ‘Goddamn, if I feel this way, I can’t imagine how she feels.’ “

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Iron Jane does not yet have a release date. Sklenar will next appear on the big screen in his upcoming movie The Rescue, in theaters Jan. 29.

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