Would you eat nothing but oatmeal paste for weeks on end?
How about one apple — just one — per day? Crazy diets,
intense exercise — here's how these actors lost insane amounts of weight for a movie role.
"The Machinist" is a hard watch, especially when you think about how much weight Christian Bale
had to lose to play the psychologically troubled factory worker Trevor Reznik.
Bale is a master of yo-yo dieting and physical transformation: he piled on the pounds for
"American Hustle" and put on some serious muscle for "The Dark Knight" trilogy. Still,
he has never surpassed the weight-shedding alchemy he wove in director Brad Anderson's 2004 thriller.
As Bale prowls around the screen looking undernourished and in dire need of some KFC,
the physical manifestation of his character's troubled mind is unnerving.
Bale lost a whopping 63 pounds for the role in just four months. According to Men's Health,
Bale got in shape — or out of it — through a strict diet of black coffee, a single apple, and a
lonely can of tuna per day. You probably won't be surprised to learn that that's extremely stressful
to the body and detrimental to the metabolism. Health expert Daniel O'Shaughnessy explained,
"This is less than 200 calories per day, so it's not healthy at all."
After 15 years of shifting body types, Bale now seems
to concur with the medical consensus. He revealed to The Sunday Times that,
after gorging on cheeseburgers and doughnuts to play the pot-bellied Dick
Cheney in 2018's "Vice," his days of dramatic transformations were over. Bale explained,
"I can't keep doing it. I really can't. My mortality is staring me in the face."
As a press photographer who specializes in snapping shots of traffic accidents, home
invasions, murder scenes, and house fires, Lou Bloom in "Nightcrawler" has a big appetite — but
not for savory snacks or sugary treats. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the unethical snapper who finds
himself consumed by the public's demand for unethical journalism. Bloom has an insatiable
appetite to be the first at the scene for a big scoop — even if it means he has to manipulate
events to get what he craves. "Nightcrawler" is a classic study on how insidious corruption is:
all of Bloom's nervous energy appears to eat away at him in his frantic bid to stay one step ahead.
Gyllenhaal said to Us Weekly about his character,
"I knew that Lou was literally and figuratively hungry."
That's why the actor took 30 pounds off his typically toned physique to give his character
the gaunt, haggard, and haunted look of a coyote. All cheekbones and sunken eyes, Gyllenhaal's
transformation helped give Bloom a tangible air of gnawing regret and wasted decadence.
Even though he stuck to a special diet of protein, carbs, and fats for his role
in Disney's "Prince of Persia," Gyllenhaal revealed that he adopted no special dietary
regime for "Nightcrawler" — just one of enforced hunger. He explained to Variety,
"I would try to eat as few calories as possible. I knew if I was hungry that I was in the right spot.
Physically, it showed itself, but chemically and mentally,
I think it was even a more fascinating journey. It became a struggle for me."
Unless you're trained extensively in the art of survival,
the one thing you're going to do when stranded on a desert island is starve,
or at least lose a little weight. That's exactly what happens to Tom Hanks' character Chuck Noland
in Robert Zemeckis' "Cast Away." To be fair, Hanks really had no choice but to slim down if he
wanted to play the role of a FedEx executive who finds himself the sole survivor of a plane crash.
When you're washed up on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with
only a volleyball named "Wilson" to keep you company, it tends to take a physical toll.
Hanks took a year out from filming the movie's initial scenes to shed 55 pounds
and ensure his character's predicament looked plausible.
Slimming down to 170 pounds from 225 wasn't a walk in the park for Hanks.
He was counting calories for a whole year and had to give up a lot of comfort food,
including his favorite: French fries. Yet there was one thing
Hanks was adamant about not giving up. He told Entertainment Tonight,
"The only thing I did not give up was coffee…
Nope, wasn’t about to! Can’t do it! Excuse me, no, I’m not! Ain’t gonna happen, pal!"
Charged with a regular caffeine intake, Hanks's diet featured few carbs and a lot
of vegetables. He was also allowed a little fish and was given plenty of coconut milk.
"I couldn't take much more of those coconuts. Coconut milk's a natural laxative."
Dropping 55 pounds for "Cast Away" wasn't Tom Hanks's first weight-loss rodeo.
Back in 1993, the actor lost 26 pounds and won his first Oscar for his compelling performance
as AIDS patient Andrew Beckett in Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia."
With "Philadelphia" being one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to
tackle the crises of AIDS and homophobia, Hanks's role was guaranteed to come under
scrutiny. The ravages of the disease needed to be visible and not underplayed in any form,
so Hanks adopted a strict weight loss program to do the role justice. Hanks
went into detail about shedding the pounds at a "Sleepless in Seattle" press junket, explaining:
"The physical regimen was very much dictated by the reality of the science.
So I was on a diet and exercise program and took a lot of stuff."
Hanks revealed that he had a pair of sports doctors who provided him with prescribed meals
and ensured he worked out every day without fail. Combined with the make-up, hair loss, and Hanks'
acting chops, the weight loss helped to create a convincing air of someone at death's door.
Two decades later, in 2013, Hanks confessed at a press conference
that his long-term habit of gaining and losing weight for film roles might have
contributed to his diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes.
"He said, 'You know those high blood sugar numbers you've been dealing with since you were 36?
Well, you've graduated.'"
Strange things happen at sea, and rapid weight loss can be one of them. In director
Ron Howard's 2015 homage to "Moby Dick," Chris Hemsworth plays whaling veteran Owen Chase.
Capsized by a massive whale and washed up on a tiny island, Chase and the remainder of his
crew waste away to almost nothing until the specter of cannibalism rears its ugly head.
Obviously, to get to a point where eating each other is an option,
the men can't exactly appear like they've been living on a steady diet of steak dinners and
protein shakes. So what's an actor famous for playing a muscled-up thunder god like Thor to do?
Lose weight by fasting with a 500-calorie-a-day diet!
Hemsworth dropped 33 pounds for his role in "In The Heart of the Sea,"
and it only took him and his co-stars a month to trim the fat. It's not an
experience he would recommend, though: he told The Daily Mail —
"We couldn't go away for a month and get skinny,
we had to do it while we were shooting. I reckon about 90 percent of our
conversations were about our favorite foods and what we would eat when we finished the film."
"And the whole time, diminishing your calorie intake and
getting hungrier and moodier and more unpleasant to be around."
So what exactly did Hemsworth and his acting buddies chow down on while filming?
Hemsworth told Men's Health that there was a lot of vegetable soup and salad. He added,
"At one point, a day's rations were a boiled egg, a couple of crackers, and a celery stick."
We can only imagine his reaction at seeing a full meal for the first time after filming.
"As I live and breathe, he's mine."
If a filmmaker like Martin Scorsese asks you to lose weight for a film he's dreamed
about making for years, you would be a foolhardy thespian indeed to refuse.
Thankfully, Adam Driver was not that actor, and obligingly lost 50 pounds for his role as
Francisco Garupe in Scorsese's long-awaited movie "Silence."
Playing a 17th century Portuguese Jesuit priest alongside Andrew Garfield,
Driver journeys to Japan in search of his missing mentor.
Driver's character is far from properly nourished at the start of the film,
but as the plot progresses, he and his companion become increasingly thin. Driver told Interview,
"When the movie begins, the characters have been traveling for two years. There's disease and a
shortage of food. They're already kind of depleted [...] and then we continue to lose weight."
Driver revealed that Scorsese wanted the actors to help the story physically
by looking emaciated. To play the part of a persecuted priest with conviction,
Driver lost 30 pounds before production began and a further 20 pounds while filming.
"What did you lose?"
"Uh, 50, 51 pounds."
"That's like, come on!"
"Yeah, that's a lot."
"What was left of you?"
"Yeah, not a lot. Just pure rage."
In an interview with Esquire, Driver went into more detail about his diet, saying —
"It's coffee all day, that's a given. A shake in the morning,
then a protein and vegetable at night. If you need energy, you chew these Fiber Gummies."
Driver also recalled one particular occasion in which he and Garfield had to wait on a boat
while everyone else on set ate dumplings on the shore. When Driver voiced his displeasure,
Scorsese simply laughed and said,
"Sucks to be you!"
If there's anything Mahatma Gandhi is known for apart from peace,
understanding, and that Facebook quote about being the change you wish to see,
it's his slender frame, hunger strikes, and vegetarianism. For Ben Kingsley — whose father
is of Indian descent — shaving his head, growing a mustache, and rocking a pair of round glasses
wasn't enough to do the role justice. That's why he decided to give up meat and drop 20 pounds.
According to The New York Times, Sir Richard Attenborough had been striving
for two decades to find the right actor for his biopic. When he chose Kingsley,
the actor did everything humanly possible to render his portrayal impeccable.
Scrutinizing old newsreel footage, pouring over biographies, and diligently searching
out photos of Gandhi became something of an obsession for Kingsley. As the
kind of actor who always tries to push boundaries, Kingsley felt compelled to
go vegetarian and rigorously meditate during his free time. He explained,
"The preparation is entirely systematic,
practical and scientific, but when I play the role, whether it is Hamlet or Gandhi,
some other kind of information comes to the forefront, a certain energy is released."
In the absence of any other strict dietary regime, contemplating existence itself and
abstaining from meat were enough for Kingsley to lose a considerable amount of mass.
When playing a professional ballerina getting ready for an upcoming production
of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," there are certain standards one must adhere to,
and having almost zero body fat is one of them. For Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan,"
Natalie Portman dropped 20 pounds to play the part of a skeletal ballet dancer cast to play
the titular role. It was certainly a challenge: as Portman revealed to Entertainment Weekly —
"There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die. It was the first
time I understood how you could get so wrapped up in a role that it could sort of take you down."
The Independent reported that Portman's punishing diet consisted of little more
than carrots and almonds as she spent a grueling eight hours a day rehearsing.
Despite taking home the Best Actress Oscar for her role, not everyone was happy with Portman's
portrayal of a neurotic ballerina. Racheal Prince of Ballet British Columbia said —
"She's anorexic, bulimic,
crazy. I'm sure every dancer struggles with little things here and there,
but for one girl to struggle with every single problem out there, it just makes us look crazy."
The Daily Mail reported that Portman's co-star Mila Kunis also lost 20 pounds
for her role and went on a binge eating spree post-production. Kunis joked —
"It took me five months to lose 20 pounds, and it took me hours to gain it back."
Chris Pratt may not look exactly scrawny as Star-Lord in James Gunn's "Guardians of the
Galaxy," but the actor still lost 60 pounds in six months to play the disco-loving leader of a
gang of extraterrestrial criminals. To get in shape, Pratt relied less on a strict diet and
more on consistent exercise. According to Men's Journal, the actor teamed up with a
pair of personal trainers who revamped his diet and boosted his daily intake to 4,000 calories.
Committing himself to a fierce regimen that included swimming, running,
kickboxing, boxing, and even a triathlon, Pratt whipped himself into shape. Of course,
he had to sacrifice one particular vice to maintain his new bod: beer.
"So the only thing you did is stop drinking beer?"
"Yeah, I lost fifty pounds in one month."
"How much beer were you drinking?"
"Haha, I know, right?"
Pratt still ate well, of course. Steak, chicken, eggs, fish, and vegetables were all on the menu,
but if it came out of a frying pan it wasn't going on his plate. Complex carbs such as oats,
brown rice, and potatoes were given the green light, as were plenty of vitamins
and supplements. Pratt, a fierce believer in working out and eating well, told Men's Health —
"If you cut the crap out of your diet and spend an hour a day doing something physical,
you'll feel better mentally, physically, and spiritually because it's all tied together."
In order to fit authentically into 19th century France in "Les Miserables,"
Anne Hathaway lost about 25 pounds to play the tragically doomed Fantine.
According to Vogue, Hathaway made her already slim frame even slimmer by undergoing a cleanse,
then spending two weeks devouring nothing but oatmeal paste. The actress explained that she
needed to be obsessive about the whole experience to get that near-death look: she elaborated —
"[It left me in a] state of deprivation — physical and emotional. I couldn't react to
the chaos of the world without being overwhelmed. It took me weeks till I felt like myself again."
Hathaway told People magazine that it was definitely an unhealthy amount of
weight to lose in a short space of time, admitting,
"I didn't know anything about nutrition. I taxed my body, and my brain bore the brunt
of it for a while. I just felt very anxious and very lost at that time."
This wasn't the first time Hathaway suffered for the sake of her art. For her role as Catwoman
in "The Dark Knight Rises," she dieted and worked out extensively. She admitted
to Allure that her efforts to fit into the cat suit dominated her life for a year, explaining —
"I didn't understand how you could be thin and
strong. I went into the gym for 10 months and I didn't come out."
As a despairing cocaine addict and the partner of an unpredictable and hot-headed gangster,
Elvira Hancock from Brian De Palma's "Scarface" has the sort of energy that's eating her
alive from the inside out. Naturally, actress Michelle Pfeiffer wanted to embody the tragic
heroine in all her raging authenticity, and that involved shedding some pounds.
People reports that Pfeiffer lived on a diet of Marlboros and tomato soup to play the love
interest of the larger-than-life Tony Montana. Pfeiffer said —
"I was playing a cocaine addict, so that was part of the physicality of the part."
As production continued, Pfeiffer became thinner and more emaciated.
The actress recalled that what was originally planned as a three-month
movie shoot ended up dragging along for twice that time, elaborating —
"I was starving by the end of it because the one scene that was the end of the film
where I needed to be my thinnest, it was pushed to the next week,
and then it was the next week and then it was the next week. I literally had members of the
crew bringing me bagels because they were all worried about me and how thin I was getting."
When Lily Collins lost weight to play a young woman with anorexia in the Netflix movie "To The
Bone," it was a harrowing experience. The actress had suffered from eating disorders in the past,
and although she had a doctor on board to ensure she lost weight safely,
it was still a difficult process fraught with anxiety.
The actress explained to Elle how apprehensive she was about stepping
back into shoes that contained nothing but negative experiences for her. Collins said:
"You're doing it for a part, but it's something so close to you. There's a fine line between,
are you going to fall back into it, are you not."
Collins insisted that playing the role for the greater purpose of highlighting the condition
gave her strength and inner resolve. She explained to Glamour that she lost
20 pounds under the watchful eye of a nutritionist who gave her lots of supplements. She elaborated —
"We really made sure to maintain a semblance of control over the situation and also just
to make sure my body was functioning the way that it should. I was reminding myself daily
that I was hired as an actor, not because of the body I would have attained by suffering."
Playing an emaciated AIDS patient isn't really possible unless you look the part,
and Matthew McConaughey certainly put in a strong effort when it came to losing
weight for the role of Ron Woodroof in "Dallas Buyers Club." The actor
followed a very unique diet during his preparation for the project.
"What were you eating? Honestly?"
"Five ounces of fish, cup of vegetables twice a day."
"Uh-huh."
"Some pudding in the morning and as much red wine as I liked at night."
The actor told The Independent about the effects of his weight loss, saying —
"I got down to 143 pounds and I was always hungry and irritable.
My body resembled a baby bird with its mouth open, crying,
'Feed me, feed me,' and you realize momma bird ain't going to feed you. It's hard."
McConaughey wasn't alone in his dieting hell for "Dallas Buyers Club:" To play
the role of a transgender AIDS patient named Rayon, his co-star Jared Leto lost 40 pounds.
When asked by The Wrap how he did it, Leto simply replied:
"I stopped eating. It wasn't an easy thing to do. Losing that
much weight changes the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you think."
Traditionally, the Joker has never been a portly villain. His twisted mind and psychotic
personality move fast, and without any excess baggage. The Caped Crusader's nemesis has never
been meaner or leaner than in 2019's "Joker," and it's all thanks to Joaquin Phoenix's mental
and physical transformation into one of DC Comics' greatest characters. Phoenix's unique take on the
tragic clown is more nihilistic, more insane, more sinister, and more human than any other version.
The Joker's wired and angular personality, his uncontrollable tics,
and his nervous energy are all captured in Phoenix's Oscar-winning performance.
Before he could film it, though, he had to shed 52 pounds for the role.
Phoenix believes the weight loss enhanced his performance, but admitted to The New York Times,
"It's a horrible way to live."
Warner Bros. production notes state that Phoenix achieved that starved and unhealthy
look by eating little more than an apple a day, which didn't make him feel great at first.
"In the beginning, you're exhausted."
"Uh-huh."
"You look at a flight of stairs and it takes like 30 seconds, you have to talk yourself into it."
By the end of the extreme diet, however, he was feeling, quote, "energized and excited." Still,
the process took a toll on his mind: he explained at the Venice Film Festival,
"It turns out that affects your psychology. You start to go mad."
How fitting for the clown prince of crime.
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