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Steve Zahn - Rescue Dawn (2006)
The Movie Transformation: Starring alongside dieting maestro Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn meant one thing for Steve Zahn - if Bale was dropping the weight, so was he. Both teamed up to play American soldiers, captured and thrown in a Laotian prison during the Vietnam war.
Zahn shrugged off three stone in four months by consuming fruit, nuts and raw vegetables with a small piece of fish every night. Combined with five mile daily runs - which he sometimes did twice a day, the actor became skeletal pretty dang fast. By the time the shoot was nearing completion he was down to one small meal a day.
Steve Zahn Says: “I never cheated but it was tough - I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy.”
Ryan Gosling - The Lovely Bones (2009)
The Movie Transformation: It’s true, Ryan Gosling is not in The Lovely Bones . However, he was cast early on in production, until a spot of miscommunication occurred between the leading man and director Peter Jackson.
The actor’s interpretation of mourning father Jack Salmon was to pad him out a bit. So Gosling fleshed out his lean figure by guzzling down melted Haagen Dazs cartons every time he was thirsty and not lifting a dumbbell for months.
Jackson’s response when the pin-up arrived on set weighing 210 pounds? You’re fired!
Ryan Gosling Says: “We had a different idea of how the character should look. Then I was fat and unemployed.”
Natalie Portman - Black Swan (2010)
The Movie Transformation: Dancers. They’re pretty hardcore when it comes to disciplining themselves. In true method style, Natalie Portman immersed herself in the role of ballerina Nina Sayers, surviving on a few hundred calories a day. While undergoing a gruelling training schedule.
The petite Portman dropped twenty pounds from her slight frame by “barely eating”, in conjunction with training and workouts for five hours a day, six days a week. It’s astonishing she didn’t lose more.
Natalie Portman Says: “The day after shooting ended I was like, pasta, pasta, pasta! No working out. It was pretty immediate. I was ready to leave the ballet life. I was like, ‘Please don’t let there be re-shoots for this film because I don’t think I could get back into the costumes!’"
Mark Wahlberg - Pain and Gain (2013)
The Movie Transformation: Dropping two stone for his role in Broken City , Wahlberg had to pack it all on again, and then some, for the part of Daniel Lugo, a bodybuilder with a bonkers moral compass for Pain And Gain .
Consuming up to twelve meals a day - the former underwear model even had to wake during the night to continue supplementing his protein intake, whether he was hungry or not. Following an early morning workout of solid heavy weight lifting, he’d slurp down a protein shake and wolf down steak, chicken and fish all day long.
He packed on 40 pounds in two months.
Mark Wahlberg Says: “I was able to eat whatever I wanted, which was fun for about three weeks. But then it became torture.”
Orson Welles - Citizen Kane (1941)
The Movie Transformation: Twenty-five years old at the time Citizen Kane was heading into production, writer-director-star Orson Welles’ romance with food was at its most amorous. At a lofty 6ft 2, Welles’ weight had rocketed to 245 pounds - around 17 and a half stone - much too big the play the younger, enthusiastic Kane. But perfect for the older, sedate Kane.
Opting to shoot the older scenes first, this gave him plenty of time to drop his extra 50 pounds in a fashion he saw fit. Loathe to exercise, he chose a crash diet as his main tool, consuming only salads, boiled eggs and orange juice for one month.
Orson Welles Says: “You don’t gain weight if nobody sees you eating.”
Vincent Cassel - Mesrine (2008)
The Movie Transformation: For the two-part gangster biopic based on the life of notorious French criminal Jacques Mesrine, the wiry Cassel had to pack on 44 pounds. The extra weight was necessary for the French actor to accurately portray Mesrine’s later years - and so production on the back-to-back shoot was done in reverse order.
Taking four months to eat his way to a heftier figure, Cassel began work to lose the excess in order to play Mesrine’s younger self. Turned out his weight-loss programme was a little too effective as his weight sunk too low. His assistant brought him daily milkshakes. Boo hoo.
Vincent Cassel Says: “I thought maybe once in my life I would have to do that kind of transformation. And now it's done. For the first time in my life, I had bad cholesterol. I was freaking out, but by the time I finished the movie, the weight was gone and so was the bad cholesterol.”
Sylvester Stallone - Copland (1997)
The Movie Transformation: The Rocky star turned his back on decades of washboard abs and traded them in for a potbelly - for his role as good guy sherriff Freddy Hefflin in Copland . The cop’s size wasn’t written into the script, but came as Stallone developed the character with director James Mangold.
In a move away from healthy meals he’s consumed for years, Stallone didn’t seek help from a nutritionist for the 40 pound weight gain. He ploughed into the junk - entire cheesecakes, cookies, huge stacks of French toast drenched in butter and syrup and chocolate milk to wash it down. Nice.
Sylvester Stallone Says: “The odd thing is even though it was very stressful giving up a certain lifestyle, I actually felt better. It was like there was a pressure off.”
Matt Damon - The Informant! (2009)
The Movie Transformation: Gaining 30 pounds to play plump whistleblower Mark Whitacre, was according to Damon “very, very fun.” Shunning anything healthy, he instead favoured the fatty delights of burgers, pizzas and dark beers to aid in his mission.
His normal 155-pound frame took a stodgy time out from his usual exercise schedule as he sat back, tucked in and didn’t once break a sweat.
Matt Damon Says: “At my age, all I had to do to gain weight was eat the way I did when I was in college and the weight went on instantly. It was a little horrifying.”
Eric Bana - Chopper (2000)
The Movie Transformation: To become the onscreen counterpart of criminal extortionist Mark Brandon Read in Chopper , Eric Bana did what most actors are sworn off doing prior to a shoot.
He stopped working out, ate donuts and drank a lot of beer. Over three months the buff actor dropped most of his muscle mass and added 30 pounds of pure fat to his frame.
Eric Bana Says: “I love Italian food - anything Italian, pretty much - but I have never had a sweet tooth. I hate going to the gym.”
Benicio Del Toro - Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)
The Movie Transformation: According to Del Toro, one of the ways he grew a bulging gut for the role of Gonzo was to consume multiple donuts on a daily basis.
He gained three stone to become the drug-addled best buddy to Johnny Depp’s Hunter S. Thompson and has since sworn off putting on such bulk for any future roles, turning down the role of Diego Rivera in Frida for that exact reason.
Benicio Del Toro Says: “What went wrong is that I guess I was too convincing, and that everybody believed that I was on drugs myself. It was insane. Plus it took me three months to lose all that weight. That was the worst part, let me tell you - I'll never put myself through that again.”
