Here are 7 actors who went above and beyond for film and TV roles with physical transformations.
1. Hugh Jackman
Jackman lost a lot of weight for his role in Les Misérables and said that he didn’t even drink water until late in the day when filming these scenes.
The actor said, “About 20 hours in, a headache came. Then I wanted to drink water out of the ocean! I see the scene now, and I look really thin, really sunken.”
Photo Credit: Universal Pictures
2. Christian Bale
Bale is an intense actor and for his part in The Machinist, he lost 60 pounds.
Bale admitted that he subsisted on only 200 calories a day to drop all the weight for the film.
Photo Credit: Paramount Classics
3. Matt Bomer
Bomer played a man dying of AIDS in 2014’s The Normal Heart and lost 35 pounds for the role.
Director Ryan Murphy said he cried when he saw how weak Bomer was and that it got so bad that the actor basically could not move between takes.
Talk about dedication…
Photo Credit: Blumhouse Productions
4. Zac Efron
Efron got so muscular for his role in Baywatch that he said later that he looked “stupid” and “unrealistic.”
The actor added, “I realized when I was done with that movie, I don’t ever want to be in that good of shape again. Really. It was so hard. You’re working with almost no wiggle room. You’ve got things like water under your skin you’re worrying about. Making your six-pack into a four-pack. S**t like that that’s just not…it’s just stupid; it’s just not real.”
Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures
5. Rob McElhenney
The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor gained weight for his role because he wanted to do the opposite of what he thought most sitcom actors do: get thinner and better looking as time goes by.
McElhenney’s co-stars were worried about his weight gain but he said that he felt great with the extra pounds and that he had more energy and thought he was funnier.
Photo Credit: FX
6. Mila Kunis
For her role in Black Swan, Mila Kunis relied on dieting and sm**ing c**arettes to get down to only 95 pounds.
She later said that going back to s**king was awful because she had kicked the nasty habit earlier in her life.
Photo Credit: Fox Searchlight
7. Jared Leto
Leto seems to be a man of many faces and one of his most memorable was his role in Dallas Buyers Club.
The actor lost 40 pounds for the film and said that he basically stopped eating and that “it changes the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you think.”
Photo Credit: Focus Features
