Christine Taylor had spent years practically preparing herself to play Marcia Brady without knowing Hollywood would ever give her the chance.

She knew the character’s mannerisms. She knew the episodes. She had watched The Brady Bunch so obsessively growing up that imitating Marcia became something she would do for family and friends.

So when Taylor eventually found herself auditioning to play the famous eldest Brady daughter in 1995’s The Brady Bunch Movie, confidence was not the problem.

Then came a request she still remembers more than three decades later: lose 10 pounds.

Taylor, now 55, reflected on the experience during the Sept. 2 episode of the Office Ladies podcast with Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. What began as a conversation about landing one of her most memorable roles turned into a revealing look at an aspect of 1990s Hollywood that Taylor says left her embarrassed at the time.

For Taylor, Marcia Brady was not simply another character.

The original Brady Bunch premiered in 1969, with Maureen McCormick playing Marcia. Taylor grew up devoted to the series, describing it as part of her regular after-school routine. She knew the show so thoroughly that, years later, she could bring tiny details to her performance that even the movie’s director, Betty Thomas, had not necessarily noticed.

Her goal was never to ridicule the character.

Although The Brady Bunch Movie placed the famously wholesome Brady family into a more contemporary world for comedic effect, Taylor wanted her portrayal to feel affectionate and authentic. She wanted her version of Marcia to preserve the quality she admired in McCormick’s original performance.

Before the movie opportunity arrived, Taylor was already playing Marcia in a stage production called The Real Live Brady Bunch. That experience helped put her in position to audition for the film.

Then came an unexpected message.

Taylor said she received a call on her answering machine from Sherwood Schwartz, creator of The Brady Bunch and a producer on the upcoming movie. Schwartz wanted to meet her.

For someone who had spent so much of her childhood immersed in the Brady world, being invited to Schwartz’s home felt almost surreal.

Taylor later described the meeting as a “pinch-me moment,” and one of her lingering regrets is that she did not save the answering-machine recording of Schwartz’s message.

Once auditions began, Taylor believed she had an unusual advantage: she understood Marcia.

She approached the part with the confidence of someone who had already studied the character for years. After her initial audition, she began reading alongside actresses being considered for the roles of Jan and Cindy. Although she was not immediately told the role belonged to her, Taylor noticed she was no longer being brought back to audition alone.

Everything seemed to be moving toward the job she wanted.

But the process also carried a reminder of how actresses could be treated during that era.

Taylor said she was asked to lose 10 pounds.

The request was particularly uncomfortable because, as she remembers it, she was not significantly overweight. Fischer and Kinsey reacted with surprise when Taylor told them about the demand.

Taylor agreed to do it.

At 23, eager to play a character she adored, she did not challenge the request. But that did not mean it felt good.

She acknowledged that she was embarrassed when she was told to change her body for the movie.

Looking back, Taylor described the situation as representative of a very different period in entertainment. She believes such a request would not be made in the same way today, while also noting that actresses being told to lose weight for roles was hardly unusual at the time.

She did lose the 10 pounds.

Then something almost comical happened once filming was underway: she gained them back.

Taylor said attentive viewers might even be able to spot changes in her appearance from scene to scene because movies are rarely shot in the exact order audiences eventually see them.

Reshoots complicated things further.

In some sequences, she recalled, her body could appear slightly different between shots because footage captured at different points in production was ultimately edited together.

And there was a simple reason the carefully lost weight began returning.

Taylor was enjoying herself.

After finishing work for the day, she and her roommate developed a habit of getting frozen yogurt, accompanied by plenty of sprinkles. The treats gradually reversed the weight loss she had made before filming.

Taylor also looks at the situation differently now because of her age at the time.

She was 23 years old while playing a teenage Marcia, and she remembers herself as a young woman whose body was naturally changing.

What she did not feel, however, was panic that the filmmakers would suddenly take Marcia away from her.

Whatever concern had surrounded those 10 pounds, Taylor remained convinced of something more important: she was right for the role.

That confidence proved justified.

The Brady Bunch Movie assembled Gary Cole as Mike Brady, Shelley Long as Carol, Christopher Daniel Barnes as Greg, Paul Sutera as Peter, Jennifer Elise Cox as Jan, Jesse Lee Soffer as Bobby and Olivia Hack as Cindy, with Henriette Mantel playing Alice Nelson. Michael McKean, Jean Smart, Jack Noseworthy and Moriah Snyder appeared as neighbors of the Brady family.

The movie earned $54 million at the box office and led to A Very Brady Sequel in 1996. A third installment, The Brady Bunch in the White House, followed as a television movie in 2002, although the Brady children were recast.

For Taylor, however, the story behind Marcia now carries two very different memories.

There was the extraordinary excitement of hearing from the creator of a television show she had loved since childhood. There was the thrill of stepping into a character she felt she understood almost instinctively. And there was the satisfaction of discovering that years spent memorizing Marcia’s rhythms and mannerisms could actually become part of her professional life.

But alongside that dream was an uncomfortable demand about her appearance.

More than 30 years later, Taylor can tell the story with perspective — and even humor about the frozen yogurt that eventually undid the requested weight loss.

The most revealing part may be what never changed.

Her weight fluctuated during filming.

Her confidence in Marcia did not.