‘Fat Actress’ on a slimming crusade

Given the entertainment industry’s infatuation with waist size, Alley endured criticism even when she couldn’t be considered anything but slender.

She recounts meeting with the director of “Fatal Attraction” when he was casting the role that ultimately went to Glenn Close. “I weighed about 125, and he told me to go away for two weeks and lose some weight. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, 125 is fat.’ I came back at 112, 114.”

The obsession with looks extends beyond the industry and beyond weight, Alley said, whose swooping, animated conversation takes frequent philosophical turns.

“We have forgotten we are not our bodies and so we’re walking around like a bunch of robots. ... Yeah, it’s great to have a pretty body, just like it’s nice to drive a pretty car. But you aren’t your car, and you aren’t your body.”

Professionally speaking, Alley figures she was lucky to be defined for years as the sexy woman who was funny in “Cheers” and films including “Look Who’s Talking.”

But the chubby woman who’s funny is different, she said. “I’m not going to be hired to play (“The King of Queens”) fat Kevin James’ fat wife, because that’s not the way it goes. So you have to create the show.”

Based on Alley’s life and world, “Fat Actress” has appearances by friends including John Travolta and executive Jeff Zucker of NBC Universal Television Group. It’s reality, sort of.

“In the show I’m much more tortured and much more desperate and worried than in my real life. But the exaggeration of that stuff makes it funny,” Alley said.

At times raunchy, profane and of course, blunt (including a bit involving Jenny Craig that was filmed before Alley started the spokeswoman gig), the series’ humor is steeped in Hollywood narcissism and pettiness.

Alley figures the concept is elastic enough to accommodate the change she wants to make in herself.

“It’s not just about being fat. It’s about things that happen with women. When I’m skinny in this sitcom, what are the problems going to be? There’s only a million of them, just like in real life.”

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