As shredded as some of your favorite actors are, not all celebrities get into great shape for the love of fitness. Some of the most incredible and extreme celebrity transformations came out of necessity: A major role in a superhero film or action movie comes along and requires the actor to completely transform their physique and acquire six-pack abs, massive muscles, and beyond.
Even some actors you always picture as ripped may have started out as skinny or overweight. Think about Christian Bale before he played Batman: The actor gained over 100 pounds to turn into the Caped Crusader after previously cutting more than 60 pounds for a previous role. Bale has transformed his physique multiple times over his career, including when he played Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Later on, Bale’s Dark Kight Rises co-star Tom Hardy, himself a skinny guy earlier in his career, stacked on layers of muscle to play the villain Bane, a physical force who nearly killed the Dark Knight.
There are even more extreme examples of celebrity transformations, like when Chris Hemsworth trained with Navy SEAL Duffy Gaver to turn into Thor, the God of Thunder, for his Marvel movies. One of the best examples out there is Chris Pratt, who broke out as the overweight, schlubby Andy Dwyer on the TV show Parks and Recreation before getting extremely cut for movies like Zero Dark Thirty, Moneyball, and the epic Guardians of the Galaxy, which saw him add plenty of muscle to play hero Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord.
If you’re wondering just how these stars got it done and what it took to make it happen, we compiled the workouts, tips, and trainers that these guys used. Here are eight incredible celebrity transformations that show just how dedicated actors can be for the sake of their craft.
If you saw Tom Hardy back in the early 2000s, he was on the scrawnier side of the spectrum. But in the past decade, Hardy has gone through some major body transformations—like when he got prison-built as the titular inmate in Bronson, bulked up as Bane for 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises,or played MMA fighter Tommy Conlon in Warrior.
For his go as Bane, Hardy apparently put on 30 pounds of muscle. His trainer split his workouts up into shorter, four-times-per-day sessions in the morning, during lunch, early evening, and before bedtime. Each lasted 20 minutes and focused on strength training.
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Jake Gyllenhaal
Prior to making 2015’s Southpaw, Jake Gyllenhaal dropped down to a thin 147 pounds to play an obsessed reporter in Nightcrawler. His next role: a world-champion boxer.
To better get into character as the middleweight champ, Billy Hope, the actor gained 28 pounds of muscle through an intense, six-hour-a-day, six-month training regimen. Director Antoine Fuqua, a boxer himself, set Gyllenhaal up with an intense training program with coach Terry Claybon, owner of Lb4Lb Boxing Gym in Los Angeles. The actor worked his way up to six hours of training a day for six months of running, shadow boxing, footwork drills, bag work, and more. Gyllenhaal also trained at Floyd Mayweather’s Vegas gym and with real fighters at New York’s church gym. Fuqua told Deadline, “We literally turned him into a beast.”
Fortunately, he didn’t have to go on a strict diet since he was working out like a beast. He simply ate carbs during the day and protein at night. “It was always high protein,” Gyllenhaal told Men’s Journal. “I remember eating a lot of Chipotle.”
For the first Thor, Hemsworth hit the gym with trainer and former Navy SEAL Duffy Gaver, with a focus on the soon-to-be God of Thunder’s arms and shoulders, since the character often appears sleeveless. Hemsworth packed on 20 pounds of muscle by eating high-protein foods, but also relied on non-processed carbs, like fruits to help rebuild muscle by slowing muscle protein breakdown. Fiber-rich vegetables helped his cardiovascular health and muscle recovery. He made sure that what he was eating counted, like eating quinoa instead of rice, since it has more protein.
Before Thor, sports like surfing, boxing and rugby kept Hemsworth fit. But for the movie, he started getting serious about lifting, varying weight, reps, and speed so that his muscles never got used to any specific workout. Hemsworth bulked up so much that he didn’t fit in any of his costumes. He’s maintained his physique for Thor’s return in several other Marvel films, including Thor: Ragnorak and the upcoming Avengers: Endgame.
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Bradley Cooper
The A Star is Born director and actor whipped himself into shape to play Templeton “Faceman” Peck in The A-Team by piling on muscle and losing fat. For the role, Cooper nixed all sugar, salt, and flour and eliminated sandwiches. His diet allowed him to sculpt a tight midsection and eliminate stubborn fat.
He spent two hours a day in the gym with a personal trainer doing lots of strength and core training. The actor used the “3-2-1 Method”—three cardio circuits, two strength-training circuits, and one core workout, each for 10 minutes—in addition speed-hiking up a famous trail in Vancouver that locals call “The Grind.”
To boost his weight loss, Cooper also gave up booze to cut calories. “It was the worst, but I would still make sandwiches,” said Cooper. “I would like cut a grape in half—this is so depressing—and I would put an almond inside, you know, to make a little sandwich. It was my big treat.”
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Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt is no stranger to getting ripped. He’s gotten cut multiple times throughout his career, including in preparation for Zero Dark Thirty and Moneyball, but his transformation for Guardians of the Galaxy was epic, dropping 60 pounds to play Star Lord, the badass leader of the Guardians.
Working with nutritionist Phil Goglia and personal trainer Duffy Gaver for Guardians, Pratt got into peak form, beginning with four to six sessions a week. (Pratt would even add in more workouts when he wasn’t with his trainer.) The first two months were primarily bodybuilding, followed by more conditioning, including cardio circuits, swimming, mountain biking, and faster timed sessions. Conditioning often consisted of weightlifting or calisthenics mixed with treadmill/rowing work.
“He wanted more muscle, to be much leaner and to be more fit,” said Gaver. “He wanted to do justice to the role.”
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Joe Manganiello
Manganiello got totally ripped, bulking up and shedding fat. His abs alone deserve their own transformation article. The actor was hardly scrawny when he starred as Sophia Bush’s love interest Owen Morello on The CW’s One Tree Hill, but he had always wanted to get big and muscular. It wasn’t until taking on the role of True Blood werewolf Alcide that he took fitness seriously, and the results speak for themselves.
When it came to food, he restricted his calorie intake, eating oatmeal, chicken, green beans, almonds, protein bars, apples, and fish. The actor stuck to a strict fitness routing, working out his chest and legs on Monday and Thursday, shoulders and biceps on Tuesday and Friday, and back and triceps on Wednesday and Saturday. He even did 45 minutes of cardio every day before breakfast.
“I had a friend of mine call me and tell me that it was a girl’s birthday in his office and they got her a cake with my picture on it,” said Manganiello. “A year ago I wasn’t on anybody’s cake. It makes me feel really good, and it makes me want to work even harder from a fitness standpoint.”
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Gerard Butler
To play King Leonidas in 300, Butler worked out intensely for four months, getting in sick, warrior shape, completely transforming his body and mind for his role.
Working with trainer Mark Twight, who has also worked with Henry Cavill and Jason Mamoa, the actor got into Spartan shape with a 300-rep workout that included 25 pullups; 50 dead lifts with 135 pounds; 50 pushups; 50 jumps on a 24-inch box; 50 floor wipers; 50 single-arm clean-and-presses using a 36-pound kettlebell; and 25 more pullups (with no rest in between).
Food was crucial. Butler watched what he ate, making sure to fuel up every couple of hours. For dessert, he’d engage in intense exercises like tire flipping and gymnastics-style ring training.
This routine is efficient but tough to keep up—after filming, Bulter went cold turkey on exercising and lost all the muscle. Now he just tries to keep things balanced with healthy eating and workouts that aren’t just fit for a king.
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Christian Bale
Christian Bale has had some drastic transformations in his time. To portray an anorexic, insomniac factory worker in The Machinist, the actor dropped to a frail 120 pounds, then bulked back up to 220 pounds for Batman Begins.
To lose the weight, Bale went into starvation mode, eating a can of tuna, an apple and… nothing else each day. Bale wanted to get down to 100 pounds for The Machinist, but the movie producers told him it would be too detrimental to his health.
To beef up after deflating himself for The Machinist, Bale had to kick-start his metabolism, which had been destroyed after starving himself. He used intense weight workouts, resistance training, and plyometric circuit training—adding in martial arts training and lots of sprints, lunges, squats, chin-ups, and high pulls.
“I’d done American Psycho and I bulked up purely for that part, but people start just going, ‘Oh yeah, that guy’s a real workout fanatic,’ and that’s not me. That’s Patrick Bateman,” said Bale. “It was a nice way to kill that dead by just destroying your body completely.”
