Christian Bale is nearly a household name, but you’d be forgiven for not immediately recognizing him in his roles. From American Psycho and Equilibrium to his appearance in Little Women, he can fit into just about any role.
Losing over 62 pounds by eating nothing but a can of tuna and an apple per day, he truly put in the work to take on the lead for The Machinist. Not to mention his dedication to gaining the weight back in time for his role in Batman Begins.
Bale really went through a huge transformation for The Machinist. Since he's mostly known for being sporty and athletic, it made the movie something different and new from this actor. He also took up smoking a “Herculean” amount of cigarettes and substituting the rest with a LOT of black coffee.
The unconventional methods worked out in the end, but when speaking with Men’s Health, he said, “I overdid it because I was enjoying gorging. I was ignoring advice about taking it slowly because my stomach had shrunk, and I should just go with soups... I was straight into pizza and ice cream and eating five meals in a sitting."
Building her resume with films like The Italian Job, Trapped, and Head in the Clouds, Charlize Theron is a woman of many faces. To take on her role in Monster, she took a road trip to Daytona, FL, followed Aileen Wuornos’ steps, studied her old stomping grounds, and even met some of the people she knew.
Not only that, she had prosthetic dentures put in her mouth to make it look wider, damaged her hair to mimic the look of the real person, and gained around 30 pounds before shooting began.
Theron did a 180-degree turn for her role here, striping away the make-up for a more searing, deglamorized performance in Monster. She brought chills to her interpretation of Aileen Wuornos, a real-life serial killer, through her research of the Texas murderer and director Patty Jenkins’ knowledge of the women prior to her execution.
The team was able to build up a documentary’s worth of information that Theron used to make small changes in her performance. Due to Jenkins’ previous knowledge about Aileen Wuornos, and Theron’s apprehension about being able to do the character justice, the time they spent researching was well worth it.
To prepare for her role in Bridget Jones’ Diary, Zellweger took the initiative to put 30 extra pounds on her 5’ 5 frame before shooting. Not only that, but she also took a month-long job, undercover, at a British publishing company! All to practice her accent and mannerisms to portray Bridget in the film.
Her temporary coworkers had absolutely no clue who she really was, even though she had a picture of her and her then-boyfriend, Jim Carrey ON HER DESK! It’s honestly incredible that she could fool an office of native Brits for a whole month with just her acting ability.
A comforting yet emotionally engaging performance by Zellweger. Stepping away from her own status as a sex symbol and into the shoes of an everywoman, she had us laughing as much as we are relating to her quest for self-improvement.
Zellweger had to gain 25 pounds to play the titular character in Bridget Jones’s Diary, only to be forced to lose the weight (and then some) for her role in Chicago the following year.
Many may be surprised to know that this was Zellweger’s musical debut, and what a debut it was! Her performance offered a source of magic in this deliciously dark tale, singing and dancing her way into our hearts.
However, after production ended, the actress had to gain more weight BACK for Cold Mountain and then, even more for Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason. Her dedication to shifting weight is commendable, but as we’ll see later, for some, the extremes can take a toll.
If anyone was going to be on this list, it would be Daniel Day-Lewis. The man made method acting into what it is today. Already a very reputable actor, Day-Lewis really polished off his hat while he took a full YEAR to study the president’s speeches and history before filming started.
He took tours of Lincoln’s home and office alongside historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, he reportedly lost quite a bit of weight to look more like the lanky president, and he dedicated a considerable amount of time towards mimicking the President’s voice absolutely perfectly. A skill that apparently paid off, according to the director Steven Spielberg.
An entertaining history lesson buried beneath a magnificent and transformative performance by Day-Lewis, whose appearance fits so well into the role that we can’t imagine anyone else taking the mantle of President Lincoln.
"Without sounding unhinged, I know I’m not Abraham Lincoln. I’m aware of that. But the truth is the entire game is about creating an illusion, and for whatever reason, and mad as it may sound, some part of me can allow myself to believe for a period for time without questioning, and that’s the trick,” he told The New York Times.
Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan, Ocean’s Eleven, The Bourne Identity, Matt Damon is who ties these films together. The renowned actor can do it all, and to prepare for his role in The Informant, he needed to put on over 30 pounds!
To do this, he apparently enjoyed a diet of burgers, pizza, and dark beer to gain the weight in time for filming. He even gained enough weight to where he felt “doughy”! That’s not all; the director apparently didn’t want him to have any “hard edges,” so Damon wore prosthetics on his face to smooth out the character.
Damon takes up a unique role in this upbeat tale of a downward spiral. Comically funny and suspenseful, his performance here is a hidden gem for fans.
He even had a sense of humor about the weight he needed to gain in order to play the part, "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," he said in an interview with the Daily News.
From action to drama and everything in between, Natalie Portman is an actress that’s proven over and over that she can handle it all. But for her performance in Black Swan, for over a year, she spent hours a day training with the New York City Ballet.
She took on dancing, swimming, and cross-training to make sure she had the body of a professional dancer. In the process, she lost toenails, dislocated a rib, and lost 30 pounds! Yet she claims it's nothing compared to real dancers, who will apparently still dance with far worse injuries just to keep their moment.
This energetic film, paired with Portman's blazing performance, creates a drama/thriller that had us glued to our seats and eyes wide open as Portman’s story gets entangled in mystery. Diving deep into the darker parts of herself, Portman completely dedicated herself to portraying the paranoid and hallucinating Nina.
After filming, she said, “There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die," Portman told Entertainment Weekly, "It was the first time I understood how you could get so wrapped up in a role that it could sort of take you down."
An actor that’s been through it all, Robert De Niro literally took some HITS for this movie. While getting ready for filming Raging Bull to depict retired boxer Jake LaMotta, the ex-boxer helped train De Niro for the in-film boxing matches.
De Niro even went as far as to take real matches with practicing boxers, winning THREE of them. Moreover, during breaks in filming De Niro went to north Italy to learn LaMotta’s accent and spent time living with his on-screen brother Joe Pesci, to make the depiction of their relationship more believable.
A classic performance by De Niro, his power and performance behind the already fantastic directing of Scorsese makes for a near-perfect film that kept us teetering on the edge of our seats.
Not only that, the dedication Scorsese took with the film was because he considered it his “swan song.” It was an immense passion project between him and De Niro. The actor seriously went above and beyond for his role in the film, while in Italy, he even gained around 70 pounds!
Jake Gyllenhaal took on a role like none he’d ever done before with Southpaw. Not only did he commit to a brutal and intense workout regime, he started every morning with 1,000 sit-ups and an eight MILE run, all before his actual daily training even began.
This was a six-month endeavor spending over five hours in the gym every day, he gained a staggering 30 pounds of muscle in just a few months. Something he’s advised others against trying. Just to cap off the performance, he suffered a staggering blow to the head just two weeks into filming; thankfully, nothing the actor couldn’t sleep off.
A simple sports drama that gets a right uppercut of emotion thanks to Gyllenhaal’s brilliant performance as the lead. Transforming into a muscle-bound boxer, this role peels back his natural “tough guy” persona to reveal an actor that can’t go ignored.
When interviewed about how he prepared, Gyllenhaal said, "It was all about embodying a boxer 100%-- A lot of training. Hard training. Training like a boxer, existing like a boxer, or at least how one can to play a boxer in a movie.
Reaching from Angels in the Outfield to Magic Mike, McConaughey has seriously played the right cards throughout his career to get to where he is today. For Dallas Buyers Club, he needed to completely change how his body looked, and to do that, he went to work.
Doing lots of exercise and maintaining a diet of fish, egg whites, and tapioca pudding, burning around 1,800 calories a day, he lost about 2.5 lbs a day, stopping at a total of 50 pounds!
McConaughey’s iconic physique is thrown away for the sake of this very moving film. Revealing that its story, like his transformation, is worth remembering. When preparing for his role as a man with AIDS, McConaughey dropped almost 50 pounds with a diet of egg whites, diet Coke, and tapioca pudding.
The actor wasn't shy about his struggles with the extreme diet, saying, "That was rough. I got down to 143 lbs, and I was always hungry and irritable. My body resembled a baby bird with its mouth open, crying, ‘Feed me, feed me,’ and you realize momma bird ain’t going to feed you. It’s hard.
Anne Hathway warns of the extremes many will go to for the sake of their passions. She reportedly lost 25 pounds in just two weeks before the filming of Les Misérables.
Only eating two thin pieces of oatmeal paste a DAY, she’s spoken about the time it’s taken for her body to recover from the stress of losing weight. This a reminder that actors have to take caution when going through their (oftentimes) rigorous transformations.
Hathaway offers a musical performance for the record books, taking our breath away as she flexes her impressive vocal muscles for this award-winning film. As she prepared for her role of Fantine in the movie adaptation of Les Misérables, she had to push her body to the extreme, which included cutting her hair and getting dangerously thin.
When reflecting on the experience, she had this to say: "I had to be obsessive about it—the idea was to look near death. Looking back on the whole experience—and I don't judge it in any way—it was definitely a little nuts. It was definitely a break with reality, but I think that's who Fantine is anyway.
This comedy actor can seriously take a punch! It took Ryan Reynolds just three months to bulk up for his role in Blade: Trinity, packing on almost 25 pounds of muscle. He had to work out six days a week and keep a 3,200-calorie diet while he went through filming.
The impact of the training paid off. Not only did he look impressive, to say the least, but he also kept the general physique after the film was released, making use of it in X-Men Origins, Green Lantern, and the Deadpool franchise.
Here, Reynolds’s action role transforms him into a true commando, and his personality still shines through the hardened muscle. His performance may have changed his body, but his lovable sarcasm still rings with Reynolds’s charm.
However, while Reynolds did gain an impressive six-pack, he would probably rather not have the film on his resume. Due to complications with co-star Wesley Snipes, some of those on set for the film came away disappointed with the outcome of the movie.
Rooney Mara takes a more subtle approach compared to the others on this list, and it starts with actually getting the role. Apparently, many different actresses were in the running, and the director and executives debated on whether or not to bring on a new face or stick to someone more well-known.
But once her place on set was confirmed, she wasted no time getting ready, learning to do her own hair/make-up for the film, and taking the time to learn more about Asperger’s to portray her character better. She seriously earned her place on set!
An absolutely mesmerizing performance makes the time fly by in this award-winning film. Mara’s incredible transformation in the film creates a character that takes on a personality all of its own.
Her performance in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was more authentic than you would think. For the role, Mara shaved the side of her head and bleached her eyebrows, as well as pierced her ear cartilage, eyebrows, lips, and nose. The performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Hemsworth fully dedicated himself to the role of Thor, through an intense five-day workout routine, focusing on functional, lifting-based, muscles.
After 12 months of the fitness regime, filming started, and he weighed around 200 pounds of Asgardian god, bulky enough to lift any Mjolnir prop that the set threw at him. Hemsworth kept the physique for the coming sequels but made use of it in the movies in between, Red Dawn, 12 Strong, and Extraction, to name a few.
Another iconic transformation with Hemsworth, who absolutely owned the role of Thor, both in personality and build. Turning from TV actor to cinematic superstar with a workout regime to rival the gods.
The actor began an old-school workout regimen with a genuine Navy SEAL and was able to put on 20 pounds of muscle, much of it in his arms and shoulders. When asked about Hemsworth's success, his trainer, Duffy Garver, had this to say: "It was just red meat, heavy weights, and some protein powder. He crushed every single workout. He simply decided to look like Thor.
Taking the starring role in The Scarlet Letter just two years prior, Demi Moore chose to completely change her life for the duration of filming G.I. Jane. To get her form-fitting, her personal trainer had her weight training for two hours, on top of a six-mile run every day.
Not only that, she took the opportunity to train with real Navy Seals, waking up at 5 a.m. for a mile run and earning blisters on her feet in the process. All this training, and she caps it off by doing all her own stunts throughout the movie.
Moore turns from porcelain to cold hard steel in this military drama. She’s not afraid to get dirty and not afraid to bite off quite a bit because she proves that she’s fully capable of chewing.
In preparation for her lead role in G.I. Jane, Moore experienced a taste of real Navy SEAL training, including 4 am workouts followed by a full day of filming. In addition to her exercise routine, Moore also shaved her head to really embody the character she was playing.
Generally known for his looks and charm, Jared Leto really transformed for the role of Mark David Chapman. Consuming a diet with microwaved ice cream mixed with olive oil and soy sauce, he gained an astounding 67 pounds in order to be stout enough for the role.
Not only that, as a method actor, he relied on interviews with Chapman to understand his obsessions and mannerisms. He practiced the way Chapman spoke in the interviews and studied how his obsessions drove him to murder the famous member of The Beatles.
Leto displays his talent for transforming in this film, going from charming to absolutely charmed. Taking on the personality of Mark David Chapman, the real-life killer of John Lennon, Leto proves that when he acts, it’s not just physical.
He doubled down in his dedication to his physical performance, "Toward the end of the shoot, one of the glaring issues was the pain I had with my feet," Leto told NY Daily News. "I couldn't walk for long distances; I had a wheelchair because it was so painful. My body was in shock from the amount of weight I gained.
