Gina Rodriguez's Wonderful Wisdom On Body Image

Like any actress, Gina Rodriguez can't always escape the pressures of Hollywood beauty standards. But she's well-prepared to deal with them constructively, she told HuffPost Live.

The breakout star of The CW's "Jane The Virgin" has struggled with thyroid disease since she was 19, and last year she was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease, both of which affect her metabolism. Rodriguez, 30, described hearing that diagnosis -- particularly as she aspired to an industry where waifishness is front and center -- to host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani.

"It was very interesting at a very young age to be told that was something I was gonna deal with -- weight control," Rodriguez said. "It wasn't going to be easy to be 'tight is right' -- as tight as possible."

That concern has followed the Golden Globe-winner through her recent success. She opened up to People last month about working in an industry where she is "constantly being told, 'You're not skinny enough. You're not tall enough. You're not ethnic enough.'" But Rodriguez told HuffPost about the positive perspective on beauty handed down to her by her father.

Beauty was very much on my mind. I had a father that would -- we would look up at billboards and he would say, "That's one version of beauty. You're another version of beauty. And she's a version of beauty. And that girl? She's another version of beauty." He always said that beauty came from within, and as much as you're younger and you're [sarcastically] like, "Yeah, beauty comes from within" -- no, beauty does come from within. I've met some of the most beautiful people, and sadly their heart is just not smiling, and that destroys it all. And then other people that aesthetically aren't considered as beautiful are the most gorgeous people I've ever seen in my life.

And the clincher: "We live in an industry where the desire to be something that you're not sells. But why can't we make the desire to be what you are sell? Why can't we make that profitable?"

Rodriguez 2016, please.


Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation with Gina Rodriguez here.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.