The sacrifices some actors make for their roles is astounding,
but sometimes the cost is just too high. These are the stars who weren't willing
to completely change their look for the sake of a job.
Nicolas Cage is famous in Hollywood for his commitment to the roles he plays.
Whether it's playing Dracula in Renfield or a fictionalized version of himself in
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Cage takes his work incredibly seriously. However,
he's careful not to take roles that could have a negative impact on his physical health. This
was a primary reason why he backed away from Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler.
While Aronofsky always envisioned Mickey Rourke in the titular role,
there was a period of development where studios were more interested in seeing
Cage play the part of a professional wrestler at the end of his career.
As Cage alleged, he turned the project down due to
his own perception of how much preparation the role would require. As he told Access,
"I didn't think I had enough time to achieve
the look of the wrestler who was on steroids, which I would never do."
Rourke's preparation was no easy feat,
as he later revealed he worked with a personal trainer on cardio, weightlifting,
and wrestling practice for months before shooting began. It's no surprise Cage wasn't
willing to put in that amount of effort for a role that ultimately wasn't written for him.
It's hard to imagine there was ever a time in Hollywood when Ryan Gosling wasn't the
type of movie star everyone wanted to work with. But in the late 2000s,
things got a bit rough for the future Ken.
Gosling was set to star in Peter Jackson's 2009 fantasy drama The Lovely Bones, playing the
father of Saoirse Ronan's character, a teenage girl murdered by her neighbor. However, Gosling
ended up getting fired from the film due to disagreements he had with Jackson regarding
the character's physical appearance. As Gosling recalled to The Hollywood Reporter,
"We had a different idea of how the character should
look. I really believed he should be 210 pounds."
Without Jackson's knowledge, Gosling spent the film's pre-production process gaining
60 pounds, which he mostly achieved through drinking melted Haagen-Dazs ice cream. When
Gosling showed up for the first day of filming, Jackson fired him for the unapproved weight gain.
"Oh we're gonna go there?".
The role ended up going to Mark Wahlberg, but Gosling's efforts to gain weight rather
than get shredded didn't go to waste. When Austin Butler was preparing for his critically
acclaimed performance as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann's 2022 biopic, he took his cues from
Gosling and also began drinking Haagen-Dazs to play an older, heavier King of Rock 'n' Roll.
Lena Dunham quickly became a household name after the premiere of her HBO comedy series Girls,
which ran for six seasons between 2012 and 2017. The show notably launched the careers of future
stars like Adam Driver, Allison Williams, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, but it was Dunham
who took the brunt of the show's publicity due largely to her frequent onscreen nudity.
Dunham, who played the show's lead, faced rampant body-shaming online
during the show's run but refused to let that criticism impact her approach to the role.
"I gained a bunch of weight very quickly and I just felt very out of control of my
own body and it was just this, like, Riot Girl idea like, 'I'm taking control of my own shape.'"
Dunham remained proud of the way she looked on the show,
telling America Ferrera at a Tribeca Film Festival panel,
"I think people were so ready to believe that I was jumping past some massive hurdle
in order to get naked on television, and I was like, that's not where my fear lies."
According to CBS News, when Dunham did undergo a noticeable weight loss following the end of Girls,
fans once again criticized her for supposedly backing away from her body positive attitude
she demonstrated throughout the show's run. Speaking with the outlet, she highlighted this
online vitriol as an example of the hardships women in the entertainment industry face.
Lately, Dunham has spoken out about how comfortable she is with her current body
image. Speaking to The Guardian, she admitted that while the criticism throughout her 20s
would often feel overwhelming, she said that it's silly to look back on it after the fact.
Sam Worthington was one of the biggest action stars of the early 2010s,
hot off notable performances in James Cameron's Avatar, Terminator Salvation,
and the 2010 Greek epic Clash of the Titans.
Clash of the Titans featured Worthington playing the demigod Perseus, challenged
with defeating a Kraken. For the film's sequel, Wrath of the Titans,
the actor opted to take a different approach to his character. Since Perseus has had a
son by the time Wrath of the Titans begins, Worthington felt it would be appropriate if,
for this adventure, the character sported a dad bod. He told Variety,
"I looked at it as Perseus was half a god and half a dad,
and he had decided that he didn't want the god part anymore."
As Worthington admits, it was probably careless of him to just show up the first day of shooting
without his chiseled physique, as it led to tense arguments between him,
the film's director, and the studio executives who had funneled money into the project. However,
unlike Gosling's experience on The Lovely Bones, at least Worthington didn't get recast.
Jennifer Lawrence skyrocketed to worldwide fame after portraying Katniss Everdeen in
the 2012 film adaptation of the first The Hunger Games book. Coincidentally,
The Hunger Games was released the same year as Silver Linings Playbook,
which earned Lawrence the Academy Award for best actress at only 22 years old.
Understandably, this was a whole lot of pressure for Lawrence in a few short years,
but she's thankful she handled the journey with dignity. Lawrence described in Variety's
"Actors on Actors" series that her weight was discussed quite a bit leading up to filming
The Hunger Games. In the process, she pushed back against the idea of shedding too many
pounds for the part, and it wasn't just because she didn't want to do the work.
"I don't know if I want all of the girls who are going to dress up as
Katniss to feel like they can't because they're — they're not a certain weight."
Despite Lawrence's insistence that she wouldn't put her body through hell for Katniss,
she did fully commit herself to the role in other ways. Her workouts included things that
felt more necessary for the role of a woman fighting to survive in a dystopian sport,
such as rock climbing, archery lessons, and cardio. Even so, she wound up committing
to more rigorous exercise for roles in the X-Men series and the spy film Red Sparrow.
2016 was a pivotal year in Margot Robbie's career,
as she followed up her breakthrough performances in The Wolf of Wall Street and Focus with a
year full of blockbuster films. Along with a hosting Saturday Night Live,
Robbie appeared in Suicide Squad, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and The Legend of Tarzan.
For The Legend of Tarzan, Robbie was adamant that she didn't want this film to portray Jane as a
damsel in distress, as the character has often appeared in past Tarzan adaptations. She also said
that she felt there was no point in the character being as stripped-down as the titular hero Tarzan,
and that she was thankful for the rare opportunity to wear more clothes than her co-star.
As a result of these changes, Robbie also insisted there was no point in slimming
down or getting particularly fit for the role. This decision was quite convenient, as she told
Australia's TV Week that she had recently moved to London and wanted to try all the local pubs.
On the other hand, Alexander Skärsgard, who played Tarzan, trained for eight months to get in shape
for the role, so Robbie was smart to avoid similar preparation for a less demanding role.
By the 2010s, Kirsten Dunst was already one of the most iconic actresses of her generation,
thanks to her work as a child actress in Interview with the Vampire and her
iconic performance as Mary Jane Watson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.
The turn of the millennium also saw the beginning of Dunst's long creative
collaboration with director Sofia Coppola, who helmed her films The Virgin Suicides and
Marie Antoinette. Dunst and Coppola reunited for the 2017 period thriller The Beguiled,
in which Dunst plays the sole teacher at a girls' school in Civil War-era Virginia.
By this point, the actress and director had an incredibly close relationship,
but during production for The Beguiled,
Dunst had to put her foot down. As she explained to Variety, in a rare moment of disagreement,
Dunst fought back when Coppola suggested that she lose weight for the role, As she explained,
"It's so much harder when you're 35 and hate working out. I'm eating fried
chicken and McDonald's before work. So I'm like,
'We have no options! I'm sorry I can't lose weight for this role.'"
When Dunst does have to exercise,
she also prefers alternatives to lifting weights when she needs to get shredded,
telling InStyle she prefers fun acts like ballet dancing over diets and restrictive workouts.
Bob Odenkirk isn't exactly the action hero type.
"God, what gave it away."
The future Better Call Saul star got his start as a writer for Saturday Night Live before making a
name in the sketch comedy world with Mr. Show and his collaborations with Tim & Eric. Following his
rise to fame through his performances in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul,
Odenkirk decided he wanted to try something new with the 2021 action film Nobody.
It was tough to get taken seriously as Odenkirk prepared for the film, but nevertheless,
the actor embarked on a two-year fitness plan with his trainer. As he recalled to The Guardian,
even he had certain limits about how far he would go. He explained,
"I was totally against bulking up. I didn't want to look like a superhero. I've had friends who do
these superhero movies, and they do that kind of weight training, and it's all about their biceps
and all that s--- I said: 'I want to do my own fighting, but I also want to look like a dad.'"
As it turns out, this more realistic approach to getting ready for a movie might have saved
Odenkirk's life. Notably, the actor suffered a heart attack on the set of Better Call Saul
during its final season. While speaking with Jimmy Fallon, he credited the Nobody training
with keeping him in good health. Without that, he said the heart attack might have been fatal.
"Exercise, and it'll help you through everything."
David Harbour has never been opposed to undergoing massive physical transformations for roles. He got
shredded to play Hellboy, and he also gained and lost weight numerous times for seasons of
the Netflix series Stranger Things. However, when it came to Harbour's introduction to the Marvel
Cinematic Universe, he took a different approach than others who have had the same opportunity.
In 2021's Black Widow, Harbour portrayed Red Guardian, a super-soldier created by
the Soviet Union as their answer to Captain America. When we meet him in the present-day,
he has spent years in a Russian prison, but as is often joked about in the film,
instead of slimming down behind bars,he actually managed to pack on a few pounds.
Reportedly, that was Harbour's idea. He told The New York Times the decision came after he
had already put on weight and grown his hair out for Stranger Things. He explained that since he'd
already started to gain weight, he figured they might as well lean into the look for the film.
What's impressive is that, for a flashback sequence at the beginning of Black Widow,
Harbour had to slim back down and lose 60 pounds at the very end of production. However,
the actor is probably thankful that he gets to reprise his role as Red Guardian
in the MCU's Thunderbolts, as he'll likely get to put the weight back on.
David Harbour wasn't the only star of Black Widow who charted their own fitness course. The 2021
film was also the MCU debut for Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, the adoptive sister of Scarlett
Johansson's Natasha Romanoff. The role also came shortly after Pugh's performances in Midsommar and
Little Women launching her into A-list movie star status. However, she didn't enter the MCU naively.
Pugh was wary of the experiences some actors have when they get ripped for a superhero role,
informed by some of her own experiences as a young actor. As she explained to Elle,
she was direct with Marvel regarding her workouts upon getting the role, saying,
"I wanted to know whether it was them or me calling the shots. That was a big
deal for me. I didn't want to be part of something where I was constantly checked
on. And people making sure I was in the 'right' shape. That's not me at all."
This approach was likely informed by Pugh's experience playing professional wrestler
Paige in Fighting with My Family. According to Entertainment Weekly,
she described her fitness routine to prepare for the film as brutal and challenging. While
it may have been something she appreciated in order to do her own stunts in that film,
there's probably no need for her to go above and beyond for a CGI-filled project like Black Widow.