13 stars who underwent a drastic physical change for a role

While a lot can be done with CGI or props these days, versatility is part of the job description of a good actor. For example, they must be willing to shave their heads or learn other dialects.

These changes often include physical measures. For certain roles, stars must gain or lose a lot of weight.

An overview of extreme changes that 13 different stars have undergone:

For his role in ‘The Machinist’, Christian Bale had to lose a lot of weight and consumed only 200 calories per day. His diet consisted of an apple, a can of tuna and black coffee. He also tried a second ‘diet’ which consisted of drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes. However, he was not feeling well, he woke up with a pounding heart and gave up this method. In the end he lost 28 kilos.

In preparation for his role in “Les Miserables,” Hugh Jackman lost 30 pounds and didn’t even drink water during the long shoot. This was harder than getting into shape for “Wolverine”. “I spent even longer in the gym because I had to be as emaciated as possible,” he said.

To play a ballerina in ‘Black Swan’, Mila Kunis was only allowed to weigh 43 kilos. She achieved this by eating just 1,200 calories a day and starting to smoke.

Nowadays, he would no longer do what he did to achieve this body. By his own admission, Zac Efron trained too much for the movie “Baywatch,” ate the same thing every day and didn’t sleep enough. He himself thinks that his body looked ‘fake’ and ‘more like CGI’ at the time, without body fat or water in his skin.

Jared Leto lost 40 pounds for his role as Rayon, a trans woman with HIV, in ‘Dallas Buyers Club’. Leto simply stopped eating. According to his own statements, this also changed the way he walked, sat and thought.

For Hemsworth’s role as Thor in the “Avengers” films, he had to gain nine pounds of muscle mass. To do this, he trained with a former Navy Seal. Other Avengers like Chris Pratt and Chris Evans also had to get in shape before filming for the superhero movies.

To look like serial killer Aileen Wuornos, Charlize Theron had to gain 30 pounds. To achieve this she lived on a diet of donuts and chips. However, Theron has said that becoming “fat” was not the actual goal of her makeover for Wuornos, as in her opinion she was not fat at all. It was more about the lifestyle and ‘letting herself go’ so she could get closer to Wuornos’ physical condition.

To play middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta, Robert De Niro first had to get into shape. For the final scenes, which feature an older, fat LaMotta, the opposite was true: production was halted for several weeks while the actor flew to Italy and ate as much pasta as possible. He gained 27 kilos. When he returned, director Martin Scorsese was so concerned about De Niro’s weight gain and labored breathing that production was halted again.

To play a boxer, Hillary Swank had three months to learn the sport and look like a woman who plays professional sports. To do this, she had to box for two and a half hours a day and lift weights three hours a day, six days a week. She also followed a strict diet where she ate a lot of proteins and proteins. During this time she gained almost nine kilos of muscle mass.

For the role of the middleweight boxer in the film ‘Southpaw’, Jake Gyllenhaal trained six hours a day for six months. He gained seven kilos of muscle mass. This just after he had to lose 13 kilos for his role in ‘Nightcrawler’.

Natalie Portman also had to follow a strict diet to lose nine kilos for her role in ‘Black Swan’. She lived on a diet of carrots and almonds and spent eight hours a day in the dance studio. The film exhausted her physically and mentally: “It was the first time I understood how you can become so absorbed in a role that you are completely done with it.”

50 Cent’s normal weight is 97 kilos, but in “All Things Fall Apart” he weighs 72 kilos. He achieved this with a liquid diet and by training on the treadmill three hours a day for nine weeks. He also had the tattoos on his arms removed so that he didn’t have to spend as much time in the mask putting on make-up.

Before the movie, Tom Hanks had to gain 50 pounds so that the island scenes could be filmed. Then filming was paused for a year to give Hanks time to lose weight. Within four months, thanks to a strict diet and hard training, he lost 25 kilos. He also hasn’t shaved or cut his hair for weeks. His diet consisted mainly of crabs, fish, vegetables, very few carbohydrates from fruits and coconut milk.

(cmu)