The last time we saw Rebel Wilson in a cinematic setting was in 2019, when she starred in four movies: Isn’t It Romantic, The Hustle, Jojo Rabbit and Cats. Then the actress declared 2020 to be her “Year of Health,” and by that November, she accomplished her goal of losing 75 pounds. Wilson has had a trim figure since then, and you can see it on display in the trailer for Netflix’s Senior Year, her big return to the film scene.
Senior Year follows Rebel Wilson’s Stephanie Conway, who had what she considered the “perfect” life when she was 17 years old in 2002. She was cheer captain and had the “hot boyfriend,” and all that was left was for her to become prom queen. Unfortunately, she suffered a head injury during a cheer routine and languished in a coma for 20 years. Awakening in the year 2022, the now-37-year-old Stephanie is understandably shocked at how much time has passed, but what’s upset her the most is that she never completed high school.
As such, Stephanie Conway decides to complete her senior year at her old stomping grounds, which totally isn’t weird, right? No, actually, it is, and not just because Rebel Wilson’s character is two decades older than her current classmates. Attending high school in 2002 was a lot different than it is in 2022; Stephanie’s idea of popularity is antiquated, she’s struggling to understand social media and she learns that the cheer captain position is now shared by everyone on the team. On the bright side, at least the events of Senior Year lead Stephanie to finally embrace being her real self, though you’ll have to check out the movie with a Netflix subscription to learn how that turns out.
Rebel Wilson’s costars on Senior Year, one of the additions to the Netflix movies library arriving pretty soon, include Justin Hartley, Sam Richardson, Alicia Silver Stone, Chris Parnell, Mary Holland, Zoë Chao and Avantika Vandanapu, among others. Behind the scenes, Alex Hardcastle sat in the director’s chair (his latest contribution to the Netflix landscape, having also helmed multiple episodes of Grace & Frankie and an episode of The Good Cop), and Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli and Brandon Scott Jones all worked on the script. Senior Year shot from mid-May to late July of 2021, and Wilson commemorated the final day of filming with a picture where she looked fit and fabulous.
Following her “Year of Health,” Rebel Wilson credited maintaining her weight loss to “keeping your body moving and keeping the blood pumping.” As seen in the Senior Year trailer, she put in the effort to keep her slim figure during the course of filming. Even though Wilson got pushback from her own team about losing so much weight, this was important for her to accomplish, as she wanted to get rid of the emotional eating behaviors she’d been living with for a long time. This isn’t say that she’ll will stay at this specific weight forever, but at least Wilson in a better state of mind and eager to motivate others on improving themselves, whether that’s focused on health, happiness or harmony.
Senior Year hits Netflix on May 17, but there’s no shortage of other content to peruse through on the platform before we reach that date. Those of you interested to learn more about Rebel Wilson’s professional or personal endeavors should keep your eyes locked on CinemaBlend.
