8 Hollywood Actors Talk About the Crazy Diet and Exercise Habits They Did for Movie Roles
Certain actors go to extremes when it comes time to prepare for a role.
And these Hollywood celebs were not messing around!
Check out how far they went in terms of diet and exercise to prepare for big movie parts.
1. Miles Teller
To prepare for Top Gun: Maverick, Miles Teller said, “For me to gain weight, that was the toughest part, man. For breakfast, it was like six eggs, and then, you know, you work out, and then you have a shake and then it was two lunches.”
“Each lunch would be like a chicken breast, a full potato, and some broccoli, and I would have two of those and then I remember there would be another snack after that. And I remember for dinner specifically, it was 20 ounces of certain fish or steak. And so you’re just eating so much. That’s really what I didn’t enjoy.”
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2. Bradley Cooper
Cooper packed on the pounds to star in American Sniper.
The Hollywood star said, “It was a real shock to my body. If it’s pizza and cake, that’s one thing. Putting 6,000 calories a day in your body gets old quick.”
His diet for the role included five meals a day.
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3. Zac Efron
Efron got absolutely ripped for his role in Baywatch…but it sounds like he never wants to do anything like that again.
Efron said, “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. Shit like that. That’s just not… it’s just stupid. It’s just not real.”
And he missed carbs in a major way. He said, “I went, like, years without eating carbs. When I shot Baywatch, I didn’t have a carb for like six months. I almost lost my mind. You need this. Like, it’s so good.”
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4. Alexander Skarsgård
Swedish actor Skarsgård trained for eight months for his role in The Legend of Tarzan.
For three months he ate 7,000 calories a day and then switched to six small meals a day that he claims drove him crazy with hunger.
Talk about commitment.
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5. Christian Bale
Bale is known as an intense actor and he lost an incredible 63 pounds in four months to get ready to film The Machinist, which was released in 2004.
Every day he only ate an apple, a can of tuna, and he drank coffee.
In 2019, Bale said, “I’m older and I feel like if I keep doing what I’ve done in the past, I’m going to d**.”
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6. 50 Cent
The rapper/actor quickly lost 50 pounds in two-and-a-half months for his role as a cancer patient in the film All Things Fall Apart.
He ran for three hours on a treadmill every day and stuck to a liquid diet to drop the pounds.
He said he didn’t want to see a doctor during this training “because I had to match the look in my mind. I was so into what I was doing that I wasn’t really concerned with that. I just kept looking at myself in the mirror feeling like I have to be smaller. I had to match.”
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7. Chris Hemsworth
Hemsworth survived on only 500 calories per day and lost 33 pounds in one month for his part in the film In the Heart of the Sea.
Hemsworth said, “At one point, a day’s rations were a boiled egg, a couple of crackers, and a celery stick.”
Just tried a new diet/training program called “Lost At Sea”. Wouldn’t recommend it.. #IntheHeartoftheSea pic.twitter.com/y89McNuiiV
— Chris Hemsworth (@chrishemsworth) November 22, 2015
8. Matt Damon
Damon wasn’t yet a huge star when he appeared in Courage Under Fire in 1996.
In fact, it only took two days to film his scenes in the movie, but Damon lost a whopping 50 pounds for his role as a drug addict by consuming only 100 calories per day. He also ran 13 miles every day to lose weight.
But the training came at a price. Damon ended up damaging his adrenal gland and needed to be on medicine for a year-and-a-half to try to fix it.
Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox
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