For 1999’s “The Machinist” Christian Bale portrayed a Factory worker named Trevor Reznik who’s insomnia causes extreme weightloss and mental health issues. For this role Christian dropped from his normal weight of 173lbs a whopping 63lbs to get down to 110lbs. To acheive this task he didn’t eat while also over exercising and using supplements for vitamins and minerals. Right after dropping all that weight Bale was cast as Bruce Wayne in 2005’s “Batman Begins”. Playing a superhero required Christian to beef up and he gained a staggering 120lbs of muscle. Director Christopher Nolan informed Bale that it was too much and that he needed now slim down a bit for the Batman role. Christian dropped 30lbs to settle on a weight of 190lbs. In 2013 Christian put on 40lbs of fat for the role of Irving Rosenfeld a forger and loan-shark, in the Academy Award winning “American Hustle”.
In 2010 rapper 50 Cent whose real name is Curtis Jackson lost 54lbs for a role in the movie “Things Fall Apart”. The rapper turned actor lost the weight by keeping to an all liquid diet and spending hours on a treadmill, the transformation took a total of 9 weeks to achieve.
Here are some quotes from 50 Cent on the matter:
“The photograph that they see of me is day one of shooting the second half of ‘Things Fall Apart.’… The weight started coming off and my manager told me, ‘You better get yourself to a doctor!’ I just didn’t want to go 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.”
“I had so much muscle on me that it was hard for me to lose definition even as I got lighter and slimmer. I started running to suppress my appetite. Towards the end it was really difficult. It was like, if I don’t get close enough to what my best friend looked like to me at that point before he passed, then I’m not doing the story any justice.”
“I think the world took note because people kept making comparisons with great actors like Tom Hanks in “Philadelphia” and Christian Bale in “The Machinist”. There is no way to play a role like this without really committing to it.”
This wasn’t the first time 50 Cent had experienced drastic weightloss in 2000 the then drug dealer and aspiring actor was shot 9 times including a bullet to the jaw that only allowed him to consume nutrients through a straw while healing, he reached a low of 157lbs. 50 says losing it for the movie was actually harder than losing it during recovery.
“This time it was a lot tougher for me… I had to discipline myself not … to actually have myself be in the physical state to convey the energy I felt. It’s a passion project for me,”
Charlize Theron underwent a massive transformation to become Aileen Wuornos a real-life serial killer for the movie “Monster”. The transformation involved prosthetic teeth, makeup and 30lbs of extra fat for Charlize.
Here is what she had to say on the matter:
“I first began stuffing myself with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but after a while I got sick of them… I love potato chips, so that was a good thing for me. I’m a salty girl so I had my secret stash with me of potato chips at all times.”
It seems like it was all worth it for Charlize, she won the Oscar for best-actress that year at the Academy Awards for the role.
In tabloids and other media were in a tizzy over the 20 pounds Renee Zellweger had to gain in order to to play Bridget Jones.
“I realized the influence of living in a society that focuses so much on physicality has affected me,” she told Vogue years later. “When the film was coming out, the question I was asked the most was regarding my weight. … I was followed around Heathrow by a guy who wanted to take a picture of my backside. I don’t understand the obsession.”
Right after the Bridget Jones weight gain Renee had to turn around and lose weight for her role in 2002’s “Chicago””. While the official amount of weight she lost has never been revealed reports at the time called her “shockingly gaunt… very worrying… potentially dangerous.”
Bradley Cooper had to back on the pounds adding to his natural 185lbs frame for 2014’s “American Sniper”, Bradley weighed a total of 225lbs to portray real-life Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Chris was a famed sniper with over 160 confirmed kills from his time in Iraq.
Here is what Bradley had to say:
“At 185 pounds, it would’ve been a joke. His size was such a part of who he was … Chris wasn’t ripped. He wasn’t sinewy. He was just a bear.”
“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.”
Writer and Producer Jason Hall had this to add:
“he was eating about every 55 minutes… he was determined to do it naturally, he didn’t want to use any hormones or steroids or anything. He was just very systematic about it and took his trainer with him wherever he went.”
Long time loveable goof on TV’s “Parks and Recreation” Chris Pratt lost over 60lbs for his role as Star-Lord (Peter Quill) in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Chris acheived this feat in just 6 short months by working out for hours, 6 days a week with no indulgences.
“Three or four hours a day of just consistent, ass-kicking hard work,”
“A huge part of how my career has shifted is based on the way that I look, on the way that I’ve shaped my body to look,” Pratt recently told BBC Radio 4’s “Front Row.” “It’s nice to know that there’s something I can do, that I can manipulate the way I look — that’s a good thing for an actor to be able to do.”
“I think it’s appalling that for a long time only women were objectified, but I think if we really want to advocate for equality, it’s important to even things out. Not objectify women less, but objectify men just as often as we objectify women,” Pratt explains. “There are a lot of women who got careers out of it, and I’m using it to my advantage. And at the end of the day, our bodies are objects.”
For 2014’s Academy Award winning film “Dallas Buyers Club” Matthew McConaughey dropped 47lbs to play the role of Ron Woodroof a victim of HIV and subsquently AIDS. Matthew has mentioned that he used chewing on ice as a way to help deal with the hunger while losing the weight. Here is what he had to say about it:
“I did it in as healthy a way as I found possible… I met with a nutritionist. I gave myself four months to lose the weight. I had my programmed meals, lost 3.5lbs a week, like clockwork, and got down to my desired weight, which turned out to be 47lb lighter.”
Speaking on the side effects:
“The surprise was how the energy that I lost from the neck down transferred to the neck up. I became clinically aware, almost hyper, I needed three hours less sleep a night… I had an amazing amount of energy from the head up. That was something I didn’t know was going to happen.”
For 2009’s “The Informant” actor, writer and producer Matt Damon gained 30lbs of fat for the role. Matt had a lot of fun packing on all those pounds by pigging out on junk food.
“I just ate everything I could see. It was very, very easy to gain the weight. It was very, very fun, probably the funnest time I had working, because I didn’t have to go to the gym after work and I just ate everything I could see… I definitely got doughy. I started eating like crazy and drinking dark beer. Between meals on set, I’d eat a No. 1 Value Meal at McDonald’s and then Doritos on top of it. It was absolute heaven.”
On a side note during the filming of “The Monuments” co-star George Clooney played an elaborate prank on Matt to make him think he was gaining weight while filming the movie. George arranged to have Matt’s clothing gradually tailored to be smaller and smaller from day to day to trick Matt into thinking he was getting fat eating food on-set.
Breakout “Superbad” and “Freaks and Geeks” actor Seth Rogen droppend 40lbs for his lead role in 2009’s “Green Hornet” movie. A heavy regime of working out and eating healthy enabled the actor to lose the weight in just 6 months. Unfortunately though after vowing he would keep the weight off the comedy star slowly put all the weight back on.
commenting on regaining the weight he Seth said:
“It’s a sad thing. I gave away all my fat clothes, thinking ‘I won’t need these anymore,’ but I do!”
*Reprinted with expressed permission from: 247Famous.com
