Summary

• Ethan Suplee played Louie Lastik in Remember the Titans, a film about an integrated high school football team.
• Suplee's character, Lastik, is based on a real person and plays a critical role in the film's story.
• Suplee's weight loss has affected his acting career, with casting directors not recognizing him for new roles.

Movie fans will remember Ethan Suplee as Louie Lastik in Remember the Titans, but even they will be surprised at what the actor looks like now. A classic of the based-on-a-real-life-story sports movie category, Remember the Titans tells the true story of the integrated T. C. Williams High School football team in Alexandria, Virginia, who battled racism and discrimination to win the 1971 State Championship. Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Donald Faison, Wood Harris, Ryan Gosling, Hayden Panettiere, and Kate Bosworth make up the all-star cast.

Ethan Suplee also appears as one of the players on the team, Louie Lastik, in one of the actor's most memorable roles. By 2000, when the film had come out, Suplee was already a fairly recognizable face, in part thanks to his performance alongside Edward Norton in American History X as dedicated neo-Nazi Seth Ryan. After Remember the Titans, Suplee was a regular fixture in television and movies; never the main character but always a recognizable supporting piece of the cast in shows like My Name is Earl as Randy Hickey and films like Unstoppable as Dewey.

Ethan Suplee Played Louie Lastik In Remember The Titans

Lastik's Acceptance Of The Other Players Is Critical To The Story

While Remember the Titans made some changes to the true story, many of the characters in the film are based on real people. Louie Lastik, Suplee's character, was indeed a real football player for T. C. Williams (via 71OriginalTitans). The character plays a critical role in the film. When the Black and White players meet for the first time, Lastik is the only player who seems completely unperturbed by playing with players of a different race than him. His unconcern with race bothers and confuses all of his teammates.

Suplee sings, dances, and jokes as Louie and brings real heart to every sequence he's in. He's critical to making it seem possible that the rest of the team can eventually get along.

Louie sits with the Black players at lunch during the Gettysburg training trip and gets to know them before anyone else, opening up the rest of the team to accept one another. Suplee sings, dances, and jokes as Louie and brings real heart to every sequence he's in. He's critical to making it seem possible that the rest of the team can eventually get along. Then, when it seems like the once-tight team is faltering, Suplee gets to show his range and acts as the leader, challenging everyone to band together and respect each other throughout the season.

Suplee's Weight Loss May Have Cost Him Roles

Suplee's New Physique Was Not What Casting Directors Were Looking For

In Remember the Titans, Suplee has the build of someone who would be a successful offensive lineman on an American football team, and he maintained that appearance for most of his career. In recent years, Suplee has lost a significant amount of weight, to the point that he's almost unrecognizable. Suplee has showcased his weight-loss journey on Instagram to his 655,000 followers, proudly pinning a "before and after" photo to the top of his page. It's a dramatic change, but he looks great, and it's even better to see how clearly happy he is with his body.

There has been an unintended consequence of Suplee's weight loss, however. According to the actor, roles have dried up since he gained a new physique. He told EW,

"Initially, the casting directors didn't want me to come in because I'd lost a bunch of weight. Apparently, they had proposed to me a bunch of times, but the casting directors were like, 'No, he's too thin now.'"

Since the early years of his weight loss, Suplee has purposely put back on some weight in order to get more roles. He said,

"So then [when I started looking for work], I found that people were like, 'Who are you? We don't know you. You're this new person.' So a couple years ago I made the decision: I'm not going to kill myself to be thin when nobody knows me as a thin person, and I do think it is affecting the kind of jobs I'm getting. And so I just kind of relaxed on my diet."

It's admirable that post-Remember the Tiitans, Ethan Suplee has found a balance between being happy in his own body and also managing to find work doing something he loves in a notoriously fickle industry. Since his weight loss, he's had some notable performances, including Wilson in Babylon, Noah in Dog, and Tommy in Santa Clarita Diet.