Dylan Sprouse Recalls Refusing to Make a Fat Joke on Suite Life of Zack & Cody
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Dylan Sprouse took the high road while working on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and refused to make a fat joke at the expense of his co-star, Kim Rhodes.
In an interview with Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM show Radio Andy on Thursday, Cohen asked Sprouse about a story Rhodes told about her on-set experience with the actor, recalling a time when he refused to say a line that made fun of her weight. “I just don't really think fat jokes are funny," Sprouse told Cohen. “There’s a better joke somewhere else unless you’re talking about yourself.”
“Like, unless it’s self-referential, which I find is fun, but if you’re pointing the finger at people and like talking about how they look, I just don’t tend to find that very funny in general,” he continued.
In a 2023 interview with the Back to the Best podcast, Rhodes, who played Zack and Cody's mom on the show, revealed that when she was pregnant IRL, the show's team wrote a joke about her weight. She said that Dylan Sprouse was supposed to read the line but allegedly refused.
“Of course, the show dealt with [my pregnancy] by making fat jokes,” Rhodes recalled. “One of my favorite memories is that Dylan had a line that was a fat joke, and he kept skipping over it.”
She continued: “He kept skipping this laugh line, and skipping it, and skipping it, and skipping it… Finally, we get in front of the studio audience and he skips it, and the executive producer screams: 'Cut!'”
Rhodes then explained that the executive producer told Sprouse to say the line, but he refused, saying, “I would not disrespect any woman that way, let alone this woman. You write something funny, and I’ll say it.”
While Sprouse wasn't sure exactly how old he was at the time — “14, 15 maybe" — Cohen commented on how impressive it was that Sprouse would have had the confidence to refuse to say a line at such a young age and the actor joked, “You'd be amazed at what having your own show at 11 will do for your confidence.”
Rhodes in the interview also commented on how “impressive” it was that the Sprouse twins “understood that it was their job to make sure everybody else was able to do their job" at such a young age.
“No, no, because I was a huskier young lad who again, really didn’t come into himself until he was like 18,” Sprouse added. “My dad also kept us very, very grounded.”
Dylan Sprouse played Zack Martin on the popular Disney Channel show Suite Life of Zack and Cody and the spin-off series, Suite Life on Deck from 2005 to 2011. The series launched the twin brothers, who are now 31, into stardom and both Dylan and Cole have gone on to act in other successful projects since.
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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