Timothy Spall stars as Peter Farquhar in the chilling true crime drama The Sixth Commandment, and some viewers will no doubt notice how much weight he’s lost.
Over the course of several years, the award-winning Londoner has lost reportedly more than four stone. And he admits the decision to get trim was partly due to his career.
Here’s everything you need to know about Timothy Spall’s amazing weight loss.
Actor Timothy Spall lost weight for his career
Timothy Spall, known for playing Wormtail in the Harry Potter franchise, admits that he felt “hobbled” as an overweight actor. Believing his weight to be affecting his career, Timothy embarked on his weight loss journey.
In 2014, while preparing for his role in the Sky chiller The Enfield Haunting, Timothy Spall decided to cut down his intake of food and alcohol, and began losing weight. Now 66, the acclaimed British actor admits that being slimmer has left him feeling “liberated”.
Speaking to the Radio Times, he said: “I wanted to change my lifestyle and lose weight. And it’s done what I’d always hoped it might. As a character actor, it’s put me in a position where I’m not hobbled by being a certain shape. I’m no longer that avuncular round bloke. It does feel liberating on many levels.”
However, the London-born actor admitted it might sometimes have lost him a role, too. Speaking to the The Independent, he said: “I knew it was risky because it can shut doors, but I knew that if I was lucky it would also liberate me. I don’t know whether I’ve missed out on [parts], but only because nobody’s ever called me up and said, ‘Ahh, we were going to use you when you were fat but now we can’t’.”
How did Timothy Spall lose weight?
In 2019, Timothy Spall OBE discussed his weight loss with Lorraine Kelly on her morning show. He told her: “If I was going to write a diet book, it would be two pages.
“The first one is, food and booze is lovely and exercise is horrible. Right, turn over the page. If you eat too much and drink too much, you put on weight. If you eat about the right amount, you don’t. And that’s it really.”
Timothy wasn’t always overweight. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet viewers will remember a slimmer Timothy Spall in the show’s early years. Timothy has admitted that he’s been “different sizes but, the thing is, I did a lot of stuff when I was a bigger fella”.
Actor Timothy Spall’s battle with cancer
Father-of-three Timothy also previously opened up about his tough battle with leukaemia, explaining it gave him a brand new perspective on life.
The Sixth Commandment star was given just three days to live following his diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia in 1996 at the age of 39. The actor was due to go to Cannes to promote the Mile Leigh film Secrets & Lies in 1996 when he received his shock diagnosis.
Appearing on The Graham Norton Show, he said: “I was diagnosed with leukaemia the day I was supposed to go to Cannes and when I saw everyone coming down the red carpet I was having my first chemo stuck directly to my heart when I was watching this all going on.
“It was nice because they were winning prizes while I was sort of doing an impersonation of not trying to peg it which I valiantly managed to achieve.”
He also revealed that facing death brought on a feeling of “profundity”, but he soon grew bored of it. He explained: “When you’re in a state of not knowing whether you’re going to live or die or not, you’re in a state of profundity. So I remember going out to the park in between treatments and looking at a tree and for the first time really thinking what an amazing thing it was.
“And for about 10 minutes I thought that is a really nice tree. And then after a while I did it again and after a while I thought, you know, this profundity thing is a bit over-rated.”
Read more: Hatton Garden viewers stunned by acting legend Timothy Spall’s dramatic weight loss
See Timothy Spall in The Sixth Commandment, which starts on Monday, July 17, 2023 at 9pm on BBC One.
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