Jonah Hill is learning how to rebuild his self-esteem.
The 34-year-old actor started in showbiz when he was young, which left him vulnerable to public criticism about his body. Hill said he started to reflect on that for the first time during his directorial debut, Mid90s, which is about a 13-year-old boy trying to fit in.
As he worked on the movie, Hill put together a magazine called Inner Children, in which he wrote about his body image issues throughout the years.
“I became famous in my late teens and then spent most of my young adult life listening to people say that I was fat and gross and unattractive. And it’s only in the last four years writing and directing my movie, Mid90s, that I’ve started to understand how much that hurt and got into my head,” he read from the magazine on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Friday.
Hill writes in Inner Children that he thinks this is a universal experience.
“I really believe everyone has a snapshot of themselves from a time when they were young that they’re ashamed of,” he read. “For me, it’s that 14-year-old overweight and unattractive kid who felt ugly to the world, who listened to hip-hop and who wanted so badly to be accepted by this community of skaters.”
Hill told host Ellen DeGeneres that he thinks that feeling stays with you, regardless of success earned later in life.