Actors Who Transformed Their Bodies To Get A Role

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Celebrities are unicorns — glossy, beautiful people who shine beneath the spotlights of their own creations. We love to see them in our favorite movies, especially when they transform themselves to truly be the characters that they are portraying. Sometimes actors go over-the-top with their method acting and techniques for shape-shifting to get blockbuster roles. From appalling weight gain to extreme muscle bulking to dramatic weight loss to convey that their character is near death, some celebs seem to transform overnight. But these bodily changes are fraught with crash-dieting, full days spent in the gym, and other unsustainable lifestyles. Some celebrity transformations are downright terrifying and others come with a side of mental health repercussions, but in all cases there's no question that the stars we adore work hard to land their roles (via Men's Health). Stars, they are just like us! Sometimes they struggle to fit into their skinny jeans. Ultimately, they always do because, duh, Oscars and Golden Globes are on the line here....

Charlize Theron is no stranger to morphing into her characters. She has done so with epic conviction time and time again, but perhaps her most notable transformation was swapping out her glamorous beauty to play seen-some-things Aileen Wuornos in the 2003 movie "Monster." To play the serial killer and ex-prostitute who was convicted of six murders, Theron's transformation had to be thorough (via CBS). She gained 25-30 pounds, in addition to having a full set of dentures created, frying and thinning her hair, and shaving her eyebrows. She embodied her character to the fullest extent and earned an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her efforts (via IMDb). Theron was 27 at the time and apparently shed the weight pretty quickly — she has been quoted saying that she didn't snack for "five days" and she "was fine" (via Insider). More recently, Theron gained a significant amount of weight, and allegedly struggled a bit more to lose it, for her role in "Tully" in 2018. Still, her portrayal of Wuornos is more frightening in its accuracy. Even down to the gelatin used to make her eyelids sag and heavy makeup to create the illusion of rough-worn skin, Theron amazed us all (via Female).

Christian Bale does it for many a person who is attracted to men, many a person. However, his dramatic weight loss transformation for his role in "The Machinist" is honestly what nightmares are made of, and "How can you wake up from a nightmare if you are not asleep?" Bale's character aptly questions (via IMDb). Bale claims to have consumed only black coffee, an apple, and one can of tuna per day in the time leading up to filming (via GQ). He shrunk down to a startling 120 pounds and wanted to shed more weight, but was encouraged not to by the film's producers because they were worried about his health. Slimming down for his role in "The Machinist" pushed the boundaries of what this honest-to-goodness superhero is capable of. He succeeded with his haunting performance and then went on to gain back a human body's worth of weight for the 2005 film "Batman Begins" (via IMDb). And since then, Bale has continued to prove himself as one of the kings of physical transformations, gaining and then losing over 60 pounds for his role of Dick Cheney in Vice (via GQ). Holy Toledo, Batman, that's a lot of changes!

Zac Efron has come a long way since playing skinny, singing Troy in the High School Musical series. He was beloved then and is beloved now. He has also proven his acting chops by fully committing to embodying the physicality of each role that is thrown his way. Indeed, Efron publicly commented on his periodic avoidance of carbs in his Netflix docu-series Down to Earth, casually shoveling carb-heavy foods into his mouth while proclaiming how much he'd missed them while he was filming "Baywatch" (via Men's Health). 

Efron's "Baywatch" physique is truly a testament to his efforts — viewers get to see the abs upon abs, and we are fully fine with the scenery. With a keen eye for macros, his trainer whipped him into shape fairly quickly with punishing workouts and a straight-laced diet consisting of lean proteins, tons of veggies, some healthy fats, and a reasonable dose of whole grains (per Many of Many). When it came to the heavy-lifting workouts, Efron's trainer took an approach that might startle figure competitors and gym rats: he had Efron maintain a low body fat percentage. Instead of guiding Efron through "bulking" and "cutting" phases, he focused on building clean, lean muscle. Efron ended up gaining a solid ten pounds of muscle by sticking with this strict yet powerful diet and exercise plan. 

No matter how you slice it, "Les Misérables" sounds ... well, miserable. And Anne Hathaway's efforts to embody this title to its fullest extent shine through in her haunting transformation to play disgraced prostitute Fantine. However, her first Academy Award was delivered with a side of identity crises and illness due to her rapid weight loss (via Vogue). To achieve the character's hollowed-out aesthetic, Hathaway shed 25 pounds before filming began. She spent about two weeks dropping the first ten pounds and then went full-force into a near-starvation diet to drop the following fifteen, consuming a scant two pieces of dried oatmeal paste per day in order to achieve her glow-y but on-the-verge-of-death appearance for the role. 

Hathaway has since reported that it took her a really long time to feel grounded and normal after such an aggressive crash diet, especially amid such a profound season of her life; Hathaway had recently turned 30 and gotten married, two happy events that can also lay the groundwork for identity crises, not that we are speaking from experience or anything (via Newsweek). 

Is there anything more inspiring than a badass woman who gets into insane physical shape for a role? We think not. For her second Academy Award-winning performance, Hillary Swank fully embodied a powerful, amateur boxer in "Million Dollar Baby," a role for which she put on an impressive 23 pounds of muscle (per Women's Health). In a 2014 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Swank outlined her grueling training schedule and diet, saying that training for this specific film was the hardest thing she's ever done. Whether it was so hard because of the excessive amount of protein she had to consume every day or the nearly full-time job of exercising she had to fit it, she doesn't say. She does explain that she had to work out for an extreme five hours and consume 210 grams of protein per day, which she struggled to accomplish. In addition to downing 60 egg whites every morning, she would wake up in the middle of the night to pound protein shakes. 

"Black Swan" is another gut-wrenchingly grim film that required its lead to shapeshift in order to accurately embody the darkness that lives within the main character. While preparing to shoot this psychological thriller, Natalie Portman endured a year-long professional dance training program, in addition to restructuring her diet, to take on the role of Nina, a disturbed, waif-like ballerina (via People). Portman claims that shifting her eating habits was key for achieving the desired look for her character. Unlike many other actors who cut out certain foods entirely for a short period, Portman told People that her routine was all about quantity and consuming smaller portions. The actress ultimately lost 20 pounds for the role, though she confirms that the diet and exercise habits she took up in preparation did not stick around after filming. But like so many Hollywood transformations, Portman's paid dividends and helped earn her both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe (via Biography).

What happens when you take two of the most attractive men in Hollywood and cast them opposite each other in a movie that centers on AIDS? You get the second best thing to happen in this sphere since "Rent" – you get "Dallas Buyers Club." In the film, Matthew McConaughey plays Ron Woodroof, a hard-living, homophobic, and racist man who was recently diagnosed with HIV (via IMDb). McConaughey dropped down to 143 pounds for the role, achieving this rail-thin look by hitting the cardio hard and the starvation diet harder (via E Online). 

Perhaps even more startling was the transformation of Jared Leto, who went to extreme lengths to encapsulate his character, Rayon. Rayon was not only meant to be suffering from HIV, but was also a trans woman — and to inhabit this role, Leto dropped about 30 pounds, shaved and waxed his entire body (including his eyebrows), and dressed in drag for the entirety of filming (via CNN). Happily, despite Leto's concern that his eyebrows would be gone for good, they grew back before "Dallas Buyers Club" even premiered (via Cheat Sheet).