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Collider Ladies Night is all about revisiting the journey that brought some of the industry’s biggest stars to the roles they score today, and that means discussing some of the challenges overcome along the way. We’ve got a brand new episode with Yvonne Strahovski for her phenomenal new series Stateless coming your way soon, and during the conversation, Strahovski mentioned one concern that almost stopped her from ever coming to the United States from Australia to pursue a career in Hollywood - acne.

When asked for a game-changing moment that brought Strahovski closer to feeling like a career in the industry could be the real deal for her, she immediately referred back to dealing with a very common struggle:

“Getting here was a little trickier. I grew up in Australia thinking that I would wanna come to the states eventually to try my hand at it, never really thinking that I would get as far as I’ve come today - and I’ve been super lucky, But, you know, at the time growing up - this is probably gonna be a thing that a lot of people connect with - but I had a terrible acne problem, and I used to always think, ‘I can’t go to the states with this acne problem because I’ll never get a job,’ having worked in Australia and having been rejected from a couple jobs because of my skin problem at the time. It’s obviously a psychological thing to work through.”

How did Strahovski overcome that major concern? The key wound up being having a group of people who had her back:

“I remember that a group of friends of mine had convinced me to come with them and it was really only because of that, and I told my agent that I was wanting to come here, that I was encouraged and had a support system and thought, ‘Okay, I’ll give this a go.’ And I did.”

Given the prevalence of body image issues and how severely they can increase anxiety and lower self-esteem, it was deeply upsetting to hear that Strahovski was ever put in the position to be rejected for that reason. Knowing that many out there could be dealing with a similar struggle, Strahovski noted how important it can be to talk about her own experience:

“It goes into all that body image conversation that we have and what people deal with and how psychologically scarring it is, and how you work through that. And ironically, for me, my face is my job, it’s my tool, it’s what I used predominantly in my craft. It’s been an interesting journey, and not something that I really ever talk about but I think it is important to talk about because I know so many people, so many kids grapple with this. They go to school, they don’t know how to deal with it. They get teased for it. It’s all kinds of things. You lose a job for it!” 

One can only hope that such judgment is becoming less common, but if someone out there is running into a similar situation, hopefully Strahovski sharing her story can make a positive impact.

If you’re looking for more from Strahovski on her journey to Stateless, we’ve got you covered! Keep an eye out for more clips from the interview before the full chat arrives on Collider on Tuesday, July 28th.