Debra Winger says she turned down weight loss pills on 'An Officer and a Gentleman' after being told she looked 'puffy'

• Winger said she was offered weight loss pills after being told she looked "puffy in the dailies."
• She recalls saying: "I'm not taking that."
• Winger said she felt strong enough "to say no to these f---ing a--holes."

Debra Winger says while starring in the now-classic 1982 romantic drama "An Officer and a Gentleman" she was presented with water retention pills by someone in the production after it was decided while watching the footage shot already that she looked "puffy in the dailies."

"I was so young I didn't even know what it was, and I just handed it back and said, 'I'm not taking that,'" Winger revealed in a recent interview in The Telegraph. "It just sounded ridiculous to me. But somebody else could have really succumbed."

There are countless Hollywood stories of stars being fed pills on (and off) set, so what made Winger be one of the few to stand up for herself?

"I certainly wasn't taught that by my mother," she said. "I didn't have great men around me, growing up. I just felt strong [enough] to say no to these f---ing a--holes."

At the time Winger, was on the cusp of being one of the biggest actresses in the business.

She had just wowed audiences as John Travolta's love interest in 1980's "Urban Cowboy." She would earn her first Oscar nomination for her work in "Officer and a Gentleman," playing a "townie" who falls for a Navy cadet played by Richard Gere. And in 1984 she would earn another Oscar nomination for "Terms of Endearment" (she would earn another nomination a decade later for "Shadowlands").

Winger has always been known for speaking her mind. She famously quit the hit 1992 movie "A League of Their Own" after Madonna was cast. In the same interview with The Telegraph she commented on the decision saying that Madonna's acting "has spoken for itself."

Winger is currently starring in the Apple TV+ series "Mr. Corman" opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt.