1. American actress Hilary Swank had to gain 19 pounds of muscle mass for her role in Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby”. For reaching her goal, Swank kept a diet with consuming 210 grams of protein a day for three months.
“The producers asked me to gain 10 pounds of muscle. I gained 19 pounds of muscle. I would drink my egg whites because I could never eat 8 to 12 egg whites in a sitting. It’s just the worst thing ever,” Swank told in an interview.
2. Tom Hardy put on around 30 pounds for his villain character Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Fans couldn’t believe that Hardy could manage to gain enough of weight to play Bane. Hardy reached only 190 lbs, while fans wanted him to be 220 lbs.
3. Christian Bale sacrificed his slender body to a role in David O. Russel’s Oscar-nominated “American Hustle”. Bale had to gain 43 pounds to change from 185 to 228 pounds. He managed that with eating doughnuts, cheeseburgers and all the possible junk food. For this role, Bale also shaved his head. Actor changed that much, so when Robert De Niro appeared on set he couldn’t recognize Bale.
4. Matt Damon gained 30 pounds for a role in “The Informant,” where he played the vice president-turned-CIA-informant Mark Whitacre. Damon was actually happy about gaining weight as he could eat as much as he wants. During breaks on the set, he used to go McDonald’s and order a N.1 Value Meal with having Doritos on top of that.
5. Charlize Theron confessed that she ate junk food to gain weight for her role in 2003’s crime drama film “Monster,” where she performed a role of prostitute-turned-serial killer. “I first began stuffing myself with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but after a while I got sick of them,” Theron said in an interview.
Experiments with body weight paid her well as she won the Academy Award for best actress.
6. Not all stories with gaining weight end up well for actors. Ryan Gosling gained 60 pounds and was 210lbs in total as he thought that’s how a grieving father would like. Nevertheless, when Gosling appeared on the set, Peter Jackson fired him. There views on the character in “Lovely Bones” appeared to be too different.
“I really believed in it. I was excited about it. I showed up, and they said, ‘You look terrible.’ And I said, ‘I know! Isn’t it great?’ ‘No, it’s not. Go hit the treadmill’ … then I was fat and unemployed,” said Gosling.