Shallow Hal, an American comedy film, is funny and surprisingly moving sometimes, according to the audiences. However, it has a winning love story. Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly contributed to the film by directing, writing, and producing it.
The film had a budget of $40 million and grossed $22.5 million in the US and $141.1 million internationally. The third writer is Sean Moynihan, and the other two producers are Bradley Thomas and Charles B. Wessler.
Shallow Hal is about Hal Larson, who only admires attractive women. He gets hypnotized to look at the inner beauty. It makes him fall for a 300-pound woman named Rosemary “Rosie” Shanahan. Produced by Conundrum Entertainment and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film was released on 09 November 2001, and the actors must have changed a lot over twenty-two years.
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Jack Black as Hal Larson
Shallow Hal boosted Jack Black’s acting career. However, his role in High Fidelity (2000) established his identity in Hollywood. After Shallow Hal, he got leading roles in films such as Nacho Libre, Gulliver’s Travels, Year One, and more.
Black made guest appearances in various television series such as Tom Goes to the Mayor (on Cartoon Network), an episode on The Office, and more. Similarly, he has hosted some award functions. He has a YouTube channel and a production company. Black also tried his skills in music and voice acting. He is the lead vocalist and plays guitar for the band Tenacious D.
Gwyneth Paltrow As Rosemary “Rosie” Shanahan
Gwyneth Paltrow wore heavy make-up and a specially designed 25-pound fatsuit for Shallow Hal. People’s attitude towards her changed due to the fatsuit. Similarly, she found that people hardly pay attention to making dresses for the obese.
Paltrow appeared in several films before and after Shallow Hal. Her career fluctuated after 2004, when she became a mother.
However, she got a big-budget project, Iron Man, in which she was Tony Stark’s personal assistant and love interest, Pepper Potts. Paltrow founded and is a CEO of a lifestyle company named ‘Goop,’ which got criticized for encouraging unapproved treatments using pseudoscience.
Jason Alexander As Mauricio Wilson
Alexander made his debut through the film, The Burning in 1981. He became famous long before Shallow Hal through his role in the award-winning American television sitcom Seinfeld from 1989 to 1998. He appeared in over eighteen films after Shallow Hal and has two upcoming ones.
Alexander has appeared in many television series, including famous ones such as Aladdin, Star Trek: Prodigy, The Simpsons (as a voice artist), and Comedy Bang! Bang!, and more. He directed individual episodes in different television series, appeared in music videos, gave his voice to video games, got nominated, and won many awards. Phew!
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Rene Kirby As Walt
Rene Kirby has had a short acting career. He was born with Spina bifida, a defect from birth related to the spine, and portrayed his real-life condition in Shallow Hal. Apart from that, he appeared as Phil Rupp in an American comedy film, Stuck On You (2003), and an episode in an American television series, Carnivàle.
Joe Viterelli As Steve Shanahan
Viterelli wanted to live a low-profile life by not appearing on the 40-foot screen. However, his friend’s son (Leo Penn’s son, Sean) asked him for a favor, and he established his new career through The Crossing Guard (1995). However, he appeared in several films from 1990.
Viterelli died of complications in heart surgery on 28 January 2004 in Las Vegas when he was sixty-six. He had a wife, Catherine, and five children.
Jill Christine Fitzgerald As Mrs. Shanahan
Fitzgerald contributed thirty years to dance, film, theatre, and television. Her role as Mrs. Shanahan was her major work for television. After that, she appeared in a few commercials. She is a ballet dancer and a fashion designer.
Fitzgerald has a line of FUR coats, wraps, and jackets. The mother of two stays fit through yoga, kickboxing, and weight training. Moreover, she is involved in BLOOM 24 and REMY as of now.
Susan Ward As Jill
Ward made her acting debut through ‘All My Children’ in 1995. It was a soap opera on ABC. The first film she appeared in was Poison Ivy: The New Seduction in 1997. Thus, Shallow Hal turned out to be her fourth film.
Ward appeared in a few episodes in various television series such as Friends, Just Legal, Dead and Deader, Criminal Minds, Major Crimes, and more, and films such as Cruel World, Going Greek, Who’s Your Caddy? and more.
Zen Gesner As Ralph
Gesner is known for his role as Sinbad in The Adventures Of Sinbad. Viewers also saw him in All My Children, an ABC daytime drama, and an episode of Friends. He married Peter and Bobby Farrelly’s sister, Cynthia, in 1997 and had three sons. Gesner appeared in comedy films like Dumb and Dumber, Me Myself and Irene, Fever Pitch, and Osmosis Jones.
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Joshua Shintani As Li’iBoy
Joshua Shintani was only eighteen when he appeared in Shallow Hal and was known only for that role. He died of advanced pneumonia on 25 November 2015 when he was thirty-two. His mother rushed him to the hospital a week before he took his last breath.
Nan Martin As Nurse Tanya
Nan Martin made her acting debut on television through Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1952) and films through The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956). She appeared in only one film, Greener Mountains (2005), after Shallow Hal.
Moreover, Martin appeared in a few episodes of more than thirty television series. Martin suffered from emphysema and died on 04 March 2010 when she was eighty-two.
Brianna Gardner As Cadence
Gardner played Candace in Shallow Hal when she was seven. It is how she stepped into the world of acting. After that, Gardner worked for the make-up and special effects departments for the films such as Zombieland Double Tap and Cult Of Chucky. However, she occasionally kept coming before the camera.
Brooke Burns As Katrina
Burns is an American television personality, game show host, fashion model, and actress. She had a notable appearance in Baywatch & Baywatch: Hawaii (1998-2001). Shallow Hal was her debut film. After that, she appeared in ten films till 2015.
Burns first married Julian McMahon, Prime Minister of Australia Sir William McMahon’s son, and divorced in 2000. She married Gavin O’Connor, a director, in 2013 and has two children (one from the first marriage and the other from the second).
Kyle Gass As Artie
Kyle Grass is an American actor, musician, comedian, and co-founder of an award-winning comedy band, Tenacious D. He appeared in films for the first time through Brain Dead in 1990 and appeared in eighteen films after Shallow Hal.
Similarly, Gass appeared in a few episodes of many television series. He appeared in notable films and television series such as Friends, Elf, Book Of Fire, Speechless, Ghost Girls, and more. He also appeared in three music videos.
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