Oscar season a weighty issue in Hollywood

It must be Academy Awards season, because actors are getting fat. And thin. And sexually ambiguous.

The Oscar push invariably inspires big-screen stars to shun their obsession with glamour and beauty. And this season features a number of dramatic transformations:

•George Clooney piled on 35 pounds for his role as an aging CIA agent in “Syriana,” which expands to theaters nationwide on Friday.

•Philip Seymour Hoffman lost more than 40 pounds to portray the tortured author in “Capote.”

•Felicity Huffman plays a pre-operative male transsexual in “Transamerica.”

Robert De Niro gained 50 pounds and won the best-actor Oscar for 1980’s “Raging Bull.” Charlize Theron added 30 pounds and won best actress for 2003’s “Monster.”

The tactic is particularly effective for actresses, says Anne Thompson, Oscar columnist for The Hollywood Reporter: “The norm is to be thin and pretty, so becoming fatter or uglier is seen as taking a bigger chance.”

Clooney, who gained a pound a day for “Syriana,” blames the excess weight for a back injury that required surgery.

“I’m sitting in the hospital,” he says, “and I think, ‘Maybe a fat suit wouldn’t have been a bad idea.’ “