Elisha Cuthbert Reveals The Pressure She Felt To Pose For Men's Magazines in the 2000s

Elisha Cuthbert is getting candid about the pressure she felt as a young actress in the 2000s.

The 39-year-old actress, who is best known for 24, The Girl Next Door, Happy Endings and most recently, Netflix’s The Ranch, spoke to Rachel Bilson on her “Broad Ideas” podcast this week about her past sexually-suggestive photoshoots that were specifically for men’s publications.

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“There was really no option back then,” Elisha explained. “That’s what the [film] studio wanted you to do.”

She then spoke about “winning” such titles like the “Most Beautiful Woman in Television” from some.

“It’s not like I won an Olympic medal,” she added. “It was just some list some random magazine decided to create. When someone reads my bio, those things come up. They actually don’t mean anything in regards to me as a person or my career.”

Elisha went on, saying that “we kinda ended up in a space at the time where that was really happening.”

“I mean, Halle Berry was doing it, for God’s sake … Jennifer Aniston was doing it. We were probably too young to be subjected to that, and feeling pressured to do that.”

Now, Elisha says she’s having to explain the shoots to her two children.

“This weird, bizarre outfit and hair extensions, and you know what’s so crazy? I don’t even know how much of those pictures are even accurate as far as, like, airbrushing … I was in my early 20s. I didn’t look bad, but did I look that? I don’t even know if the fantasy’s real.”

Elisha continue, “If I can take what I know now about having two children, and going back, I would be so much kinder to myself. Luckily, I didn’t have any eating issues or anything like that, but I definitely got caught up in that wanting to live up to what everyone was expecting of us, which is [to be] the ‘hottest woman in the world.’ It’s like what? I’m an actress. I’m not Gisele [Bündchen], what in the world? I’m 5’2″ with little legs and height. It was kind of ridiculous.”

“Living up to these ridiculous standards, it’s just not reality.”