He has kept at it. By working out daily and cutting down on carbs, the 5'11" Williams has shed eight inches from his waistline and more than 50 lbs. (and counting). So when he showed up to reshoot scenes as Brother's gadget-inventing scientist, he didn't look like his old self. "I was like, 'Gary, we need continuity here! Eat some pasta!'" says director Malcolm D. Lee, who instead put Williams in a fat-suit. Now his pals figure he should quit while he's ahead. "He'll lose too much," quips Malcolm's, Bryan Cranston, "and people will mistake him for Denzel."
Fat chance. But he wouldn't mind getting Denzel's dramatic roles. In the Williams family—he was one of 10 children of retired baking-company foreman Willie, 78, and his homemaker wife, Johnnie, 70—"everybody is funnier than I am," says the Georgia native. Classically trained, he performed Shakespeare onstage before moving to L.A. in 1998 and landing a gig on Malcolm. But his downsizing had nothing to do with the pressures of Hollywood. "I've never been ashamed of how I look," says Williams, who lives with wife Leslie, 38, a project manager, in a three-bedroom home in North Hollywood. "I've changed the way I live. I'd like to be around a long time."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
