Actress Chrissy Metz, best known to "This is Us" fans as Kate, a 30-something struggling with her weight, says she had just 81 cents her account when the show came to her.
The 36-year-old star was raised by her single mother in Florida and remembers times when her mother would go without dinner to ensure that her children ate. Her mother eventually remarried and had two more daughters, reported Glamour.
Metz believes this is why "food equals love" in her family.
"Comedy soon became my outlet. I was always the class clown, and I think I gravitated toward performing for the attention I didn't always think I was getting at home," the actress told the magazine.
Metz says she wanted to act but did not know how to start even though she was worried about the odds, which were stacked against her.
She went for an open-call for modeling and talent where her skinny sister was selected while her rendition of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" impressed the judge so much that she promised the actress to introduce her to managers and agents in Los Angeles.
Metz eventually found a role in "American Horror Story" but it did not turn out to be the jumping board that the actress had hoped for. She credits her roommate and friends for helping her when she had no money.
"I am so grateful that I had such an amazing support system, but when I booked This Is Us, I had 81 cents in my bank account. I could cry right now just thinking about it," she says.
"Getting the role of Kate has changed everything. It's crazy to go from not having enough money to buy food to getting free dinners. Why is it that when you really need something, you don't have it? And when you can afford it, you have a surplus of it?," she says, adding that she now wants to give back to people who helped her.
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