"What's Eating Gilbert Grape" Actress Losses 250 lbs, Wants to Act Again

From worstpreviews, In the 1993 movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," Darlene Cates played Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio's morbidly obese mother Bonnie, who hasn't left the house in years while dealing with depression following her husband's suicide.

Now, twenty years later, 64-year-old Cates has gone from 575 lbs to 331 (pictured, before/after) and is ready to get back to acting. "I can do moms real well," she said. "I'm not opposed to doing science fiction or comedy, but there has to be respect. I refuse to be the joke, the fat woman joke, in any movie. I've turned down roles."

Cates is interested in taking one or two roles. But first, she'll have to recover from a series of health scares and four surgeries that kept her in hospitals for almost 11 months, until last November. For now, she remains housebound, but has plans to lose another 100 lbs.