Please Give's Sarah Steele Is Pretty Damn Cool

For Please Give, 21-year-old actress and Columbia University junior Sarah Steele was given a (fictional) acne problem. In Spanglish, she wore a fat suit. In spite, or perhaps because of that, she is refreshingly down-to-earth about the Hollywood starlet system.

She recently told Women’s Wear Daily,

“I’m much better at things if I believe in them, and a lot of those little teenage starlet roles, they have problems, too, and a lot of movies just ignore that…We see these cute, perfect bombshells that make me feel like I’m not good enough, I’m not pretty enough. I don’t think I could pull off playing a person like that, and do I want to? I don’t know.”

And here she is on her role in Please Give as Catherine Keener’s daughter:

“I never had skin problems, but I feel like every girl, I hope, can relate to feeling like the ugliest girl on the planet,” explains Steele, whose blemishes in the film were the handiwork of makeup artist Rebecca Perkins. “Abby is smart and funny. She was a real teenager and real teenagers have those problems. I would feel much more weird playing a teenager I didn’t believe exists.”

Steele, who has also made some appearances on Gossip Girl, also sounds balanced and realistic about the future. “I think I will have to find things that are totally mine. I have so much comfort that school and my academic life are totally mine. I hope that there’s not a lot of idleness in my future.”