Movies often come to life thanks to Hollywood stars who go to extreme lengths to fully embody their onscreen characters.
From drastic weight loss to dramatic muscle gain, when these A-listers show up looking completely unrecognizable for a role, it instantly becomes a hot topic of discussion.
Here’s a list of 20 actors who took method acting to a whole new level, and ended up paying a heavy price for their dedication.
Trigger Warning: This article discusses extreme and unhealthy eating habits that may be distressing to some readers.
#1 Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron’s jaw-dropping transformation in Monster remains one of Hollywood’s most talked-about character makeovers.
To portray real-life Aileen Wuornos in the 2003 film, Theron gained 30 pounds through a diet of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and potato chips.
Her appearance was drastically altered using “prosthetics and a fat-suit,” bleached and partially shaved eyebrows, dentures that changed her speech, and layers of tattoo ink to make her skin look sun-damaged.
Her natural hair was also thinned, dulled, and styled to appear greasy and unkempt.
The transformation process took hours each day to age the actress and capture Wuornos’ hardened appearance.
Reflecting on her experience, Theron told Stumped Magazine, “I knew I had to transform my body to get myself into her physical skin, the way she moved in her body. And so, I think, for me as an actor, I really… I love that aspect.”
Theron’s commitment to the role ultimately paid off, as she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2004.
Image source: Swan Gallet/WWD, Classic-Film-Clips
#2 Anne Hathaway
Transforming for her role as Fantine was a challenging and demanding process for Anne Hathaway.
The actress lost around 25 pounds for the 2012 musical Les Misérables, based on Victor Hugo’s classic novel.
Hathaway followed a strict diet of dried oatmeal paste, initially shedding 10 pounds before filming and later losing an additional 15 pounds by consuming just two thin pieces of oatmeal paste a day.
“I had to be obsessive about it, the idea was to look near d**th,” Hathaway told Vogue in 2012.
She also admitted how unrealistic and unhealthy the diet was, calling it a “break with reality.”
The extreme regimen ultimately took a toll on her, leaving her in a “state of deprivation.”
“When I got home, I couldn’t react to the chaos of the world without being overwhelmed. It took me weeks till I felt like myself again.”
Image source: Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images, LesMiserablesFilm
#3 Christian Bale
Christian Bale has long been hailed as Hollywood’s ultimate chameleon, and to deliver some of his best performances, the actor went to unimaginable extremes.
His most notable transformation was for the 2004 psychological thriller The Machinist, where he played an emaciated insomniac industrial worker.
To embody that character, Bale lost about 60 pounds in just four months, surviving on nothing but black coffee, an apple, and a can of tuna a day, a routine he later dubbed the “Black Coffee Fast.”
His daily intake was barely 200 calories, and by the time filming began, he weighed only 120 pounds.
The actor even wanted to go further and drop down to 100 pounds, but the film’s producers stepped in, fearing for his health.
Later, he gained over 40 pounds to portray Dick Cheney in Vice and then had to shed it all again to play race car driver Ken Miles in Ford v Ferrari.
Reflecting on his physical transformations, Bale admitted in a 2019 interview with The Sunday Times that such extremes were taking a heavy toll on his body.
“I’ve become a little bit more boring now because I’m older, and I feel like if I keep doing what I’ve done in the past, I’m going to d**. So, I’d prefer not to d**.”
Image source: Robin L Marshall/Getty Images, Lost Reels
#4 Ryan Gosling
Ryan Gosling’s dedication to portray a fictional character once backfired at him when he was fired from the 2009 film The Lovely Bones just days before filming began.
The actor had been cast as Jack Salmon, a grieving father in the story, a role that was later taken over by actor Mark Wahlberg.
Believing the character should look “210 pounds,” Gosling dramatically transformed his body by drinking melted Häagen-Dazs ice cream whenever he was thirsty.
He ended up 60 pounds heavier than his usual weight at the time.
“We had a different idea of how the character should look. I really believed he should be 210 pounds,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2010.
But the director disagreed with Gosling’s interpretation and abruptly dropped him from the project.
“I just showed up on set, and I had gotten it wrong. Then I was fat and unemployed.”
Image source: Jerod Harris/Getty Images, Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
#5 Matthew Mcconaughey
For his Oscar-winning role in Dallas Buyers Club in 2013, Matthew McConaughey underwent one of the most extreme transformations of his career.
Through an intense diet consisting of “a Diet Coke, two egg whites in the morning, a piece of chicken, then another Diet Coke,” he lost 47 pounds in just a few weeks.
He told the Daily Mirror in 2014, “It was tough going, I’m not going to lie. The dieting was pretty hard… I was always hungry, and irritable.”
“My body resembled a baby bird with its mouth open, crying, ‘Feed me, feed me,’ and you realise momma bird ain’t going to feed you. It’s hard.”
To cope with the hunger, McConaughey treated himself to a tiny portion of tapioca pudding each morning.
Though the process was grueling, his commitment to portraying the emaciated, medication-smuggling AIDS patient with authenticity ultimately paid off.
In 2014, Matthew won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his acclaimed role.
Image source: Karwai Tang/WireImage, Voltage Pictures
#6 Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman pushed her body to the limit while preparing for her Oscar-winning role in 2010 film Black Swan.
The actress revealed that the brutal training regimen and restrictive diet she followed to perfectly portray a professional ballerina left her fearing for her life.
According to reports, Portman lost around 20 pounds for the role, surviving mostly on salads and fruits while rehearsing up to eight hours a day, which later turned into 16-hour workdays during filming.
“There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to d**,” she told Entertainment Weekly back in 2010.
“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.”
She even dislocated a rib during rehearsals but continued dancing through the pain, explaining that dancers often perform “on a sprained ankle or with a twisted neck or something.”
Her intense transformation also sparked backlash at the time from notable ballerinas like Racheal Prince, who described her physical portrayal in the film as “an**exic, bul**ic, crazy.”
Image source: Dominique Charriau/WireImage, Searchlight Pictures
#7 Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks’ dedication to his character, Chuck Noland, in one of his most acclaimed films, Cast Away, nearly cost him his life.
The actor, who played a FedEx employee stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash, revealed that a leg injury he sustained during filming led to a serious infection.
“It put me in the hospital,” Hanks told BBC in 2009.
“I was there for three days with something that, believe it or not, almost ki**ed me.”
He initially mistook the infected cut for a harmless sore, but doctors quickly discovered it was far more dangerous and could have been life-threatening if left untreated.
“I got an infection from a cut and it was eating its way through my leg. The doctor said, ‘We have to get this infection out before it p**sons your blood and you d**.’”
Apart from the health scare, he also lost a significant amount of weight and grew a beard to realistically depict five years of isolation in the film.
While the experience nearly cost him his life, the role ultimately earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Image source: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images, Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers
#8 Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson’s transformation into real-life 6-foot-3, 260-pound MMA fighter Mark Kerr for The Smashing Machine pushed him to extreme limits.
Each day on set began with a grueling three to four hours in the makeup chair, where he underwent an extensive transformation involving 21 prosthetics designed by Academy Award-winning artist Kazu Hiro to make him look exactly as Kerr.
“I’ve never worked harder, and we like hard work, it’s what we all like to do. But man, I had never worked harder for a role,” Johnson told ESPN.
To truly embody Kerr, the Fast & Furious star also worked with a voice coach and trained under real MMA fighters to replicate the athlete’s physicality.
His preparation involved a month-long MMA camp filled with intense cardio sessions, weightlifting, and cage training that pushed his endurance to the edge.
When director Benny Safdie told him he needed to appear “puffier,” Johnson even gained nearly 30 pounds of solid mass.
“Kerr has a rare one-of-one body. Fast-twitch fibers, that different quality of muscle of a wrestler with a nonstop motor… to put on that kind of muscle is just different.”
The end result was hailed by critics as one of Johnson’s best acting performances yet.
Image source: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, A24
#9 Austin Butler
Austin Butler’s dedication to portraying Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 biopic took an intense toll not only on his body but also on his mind.
The actor revealed during an episode of Variety’s Actors on Actors that he didn’t see his family for nearly three years while preparing for and filming the role.
“I had months where I wouldn’t talk to anybody. When I did, the only thing I was ever thinking about was Elvis.”
He became so immersed in the role that even after filming wrapped, Elvis’s southern drawl stayed with him for quite a long time.
Apart from this, he also had to gain weight to portray the older version of Elvis in some scenes.
He confessed that in addition to his own bulking strategy involving doughnuts, he was heavily inspired by Ryan Gosling’s method of drinking melted Häagen-Dazs to gain weight for The Lovely Bones.
“I would go get two dozen doughnuts and eat them all… It’s fun for a week or so, and then you feel awful with yourself.”
This unhealthy eating habit left him hospitalized shortly after filming ended when his body began “shutting down” after contracting a virus that mimicked appendicitis.
Image source: Lyvans Boolaky/WireImage, Warner Bros.
#10 Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis went to extreme lengths to prepare for her critically acclaimed role as a ballerina in the 2010 film Black Swan.
The actress revealed that she lost a significant amount of weight, dropping to just 95 pounds at a height of 5’4″, while training intensely for three months to convincingly portray a professional ballerina.
“I had to look skinny in order to look like a ballerina,” she shared in a 2016 interview with Howard Stern.
To achieve her thin frame, she admitted to consuming “a lot of” cigarettes and restricting herself to a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet.
“I’m not promoting this at all… I don’t recommend anybody ever doing it… It was awful.”
Kunis later described the process as one of the most physically challenging experiences of her life and said she has since quit the unhealthy habit, calling it “the best decision” she’s ever made.
While her efforts earned her an Oscar nomination, Kunis emphasized she’d never go through that again.
Image source: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images, Searchlight Pictures
#11 Chris Hemsworth
Chris Hemsworth, best known for his god-like physique as Thor, took on a drastically different challenge for his 2015 film In the Heart of the Sea.
The Aussie actor had to shed 33 pounds in just four weeks, a grueling transformation that took a serious toll on both his body and mind.
To achieve the look, Hemsworth survived on a meager diet of boiled eggs, salads, and “nothing much else,” consuming only about 500 calories a day.
“The gaining is fine, you just eat a lot and lift weights,” he shared during a 2015 appearance on Good Morning America.
“But that was underfed, which led to a pretty moody existence and inconsistent emotions.”
The intense caloric restriction left him drained and irritable, as he admitted, “The insanity is nuts… We were desperate.”
Reflecting on the process, Hemsworth said the hunger and exhaustion actually enhanced his performance in the film.
Image source: Mike Marsland/WireImage, Movieclips
#12 Florence Pugh
While Florence Pugh’s chilling portrayal of Dani in the 2019 horror film Midsommar wasn’t a physically demanding role, it came with a heavy emotional cost and intense psychological preparation.
The actress revealed that she pushed herself to extreme mental depths to bring the grief-stricken character to life, admitting that she even “ab**ed” herself in the process.
“There have been some roles where I’ve given too much and I’ve been broken for a long while afterwards. Like when I did Midsommar, I definitely felt like I ab**ed myself in the places that I got myself to go,” Pugh said on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast earlier this year.
To achieve Dani’s constant state of anguish, Pugh imagined devastating scenarios involving her family.
She “imagined family members in coffins, going to an open-casket funeral for my siblings” and loved ones.
On top of the psychological toll, filming conditions made the experience even more grueling, with most of the shoot taking place “in a very hot field” in Hungary amid a multilingual crew.
“I wouldn’t say that all of it was pleasurable… I don’t regret it. But, yeah, there are definitely things that you have to respect about yourself,” Pugh reflected.
Image source: Dave Benett/Getty Images, A24
#13 Leonardo Dicaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed a 19th-century frontiersman in the 2015 film The Revenant, a role that saw him survive a brutal bear attack and battle the freezing wilderness.
Shedding light on his preparation process, DiCaprio told Yahoo Movies that “30 or 40 sequences” in the film “were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.”
During filming and training, the actor repeatedly waded through frozen rivers, slept inside animal carcasses, and even ate raw bison liver on camera.
“I certainly don’t eat raw bison liver on a regular basis,” he admitted jokingly, adding that the disgusted reaction viewers saw in the scene was completely genuine.
The Oscar-winning performance pushed him to extreme limits, forcing him to often endure freezing temperatures and battle the constant threat of hypothermia.
“Nobody was crazy enough to really take this on… but it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Image source: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, 20th Century Studios
#14 Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix transformed for his role as Arthur Fleck in the Joker franchise by famously losing 52 pounds for the first film in 2019.
To achieve the character’s gaunt, emaciated look, Phoenix survived on a diet consisting mainly of lettuce and steamed vegetables.
Years later, while preparing for his role in the 2024 Joker: Folie à Deux, Joaquin revealed during a Venice Film Festival press conference that the process was even more challenging due to extensive dance rehearsals.
Although he refused to disclose the exact details of his diet this time, he admitted that the physical transformation was “a bit more difficult” than before.
Acknowledging the risks of such drastic weight loss at his age, he was 49 at the time, he shared, “I probably shouldn’t do this again. This is probably it for me.”
Phoenix also expressed regret over his weight loss, revealing how it had become an obsession.
“It’s difficult to do so that becomes your obsession because you’re working the entire time to get to a certain weight… By the end of that run, I was so sick of myself and angry at myself for making such a big deal about that part.”
Image source: Scott Kowalchyk/CBS , Warner Bros.
#15 Rooney Mara
Rooney Mara underwent a dramatic physical transformation to portray Lisbeth Salander in the 2011 American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
To fully embody the character, Mara had her eyebrows bleached, hair chopped and dyed black, and received multiple piercings, including lip, brow, nose, and even ni**le piercings, all in a single day.
“I didn’t even have pierced ears. “They put four holes in each ear, and, weirdly, that hurt the most,” she revealed in a 2011 interview.
The transformation didn’t stop there, as Mara also endured temporary tattoos and was asked by director David Fincher to go out drinking heavily so he could photograph her looking “strung out.”
The booze experience left her throwing up “all night.”
Reflecting on the experience, Mara said the most surprising part was her eyebrows, which completely changed her face.
She told Vogue, “I didn’t recognize myself. But I was fine because I knew it was going to be really helpful for getting into character.”
The role of the fictional hacker marked one of Mara’s most intense physical transformations to date.
Image source: Swan Gallet/WWD, Sony Pictures Entertainment
#16 Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher pushed himself dangerously hard while preparing to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the 2013 biopic Jobs.
To channel the late tech visionary on the big screen, Kutcher adopted a fruit-only diet, one that Jobs himself reportedly followed.
But the extreme regimen took a toll on his health, and the actor was hospitalized with serious pancreatic issues just two days before filming began.
“The fruitarian diet can lead to severe issues… My pancreas levels were completely out of whack. It was really terrifying … considering everything,” Aston shared in a 2013 press interview at the Sundance Film Festival.
His health was severely impacted, leaving him “doubled over in pain.”
The experience felt eerily similar to Jobs’ real-life passing from pancreatic cancer in 2011.
Years later, during a 2019 appearance on Hot Ones, Kutcher revealed just how far he went trying to portray Jobs.
He confessed that he had been “drinking carrot juice nonstop all day long” to stay in character.
Image source: Jason Mendez/Getty Images, Rotten Tomatoes Trailers
#17 Beyoncé
Beyoncé lost a lot of weight for her 2006 role in Dreamgirls, following the controversial “Master Cleanse” diet.
She revealed that she lost 20 pounds in just two weeks by following the juice cleanse.
The cleanse involves giving up solid food entirely and consuming only a mixture of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup for days, sometimes even weeks.
“I was very hungry; therefore, I was evil,” Beyoncé joked about her demeanor on the film during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres.
“When we wrapped the movie, I ate a whole dozen of Krispy Kreme donuts.”
While the method helped her shed weight quickly, nutritionists have since strongly criticized the cleanse for its extreme nature and lack of nutrients.
According to dietitian Ysabel Montemayor, such detoxes can “put participants at risk of nutritional deficiencies and starvation,” as most juice-based cleanses lack protein, fiber, and healthy fats, leading to long-term harm.
Despite her rapid transformation, Beyoncé later admitted she wouldn’t recommend the diet to anyone.
Image source: Mason Poole/Parkwood Media/Getty Images, Paramount Pictures
#18 Tom Holland
In the 2021 film Cherry, Tom Holland portrayed a soldier who spiraled into unlawful activities and substance dependence.
The role required him to lose an extreme amount of weight.
He followed a caloric restriction diet, consuming less than 500 calories daily to shed as much weight as possible.
“I was trying to keep below 500 calories a day, I was working out like a crazy person, I was dropping weight really, really quickly,” Holland told Men’s Health earlier this year.
He also followed a crash diet for his 2023 role in the Apple TV+ series Crowded Room.
Tom acknowledged that such extreme eating restrictions bordered on dangerous and said it was “not worth it,” as “it can actually promote quite considerable health concerns down the line.”
He also became very sick during these periods, and recovering to a normal eating habit was a “long journey.”
Image source: Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage, Apple TV
#19 Zac Efron
Zac Efron’s chiseled body in Baywatch might have looked picture-perfect on screen, but behind the scenes, it came at a serious cost.
The actor revealed in a 2022 Men’s Health interview that his extreme diet and training routine for the 2017 film left him physically and mentally drained.
Efron admitted that to achieve his action-hero physique, he relied on “powerful diuretics,” overtrained, and survived on three meals a day, all while waking up at 4 a.m. to hit the gym.
“That Baywatch look, I don’t know if that’s really attainable. There’s just too little water in the skin.”
The intense regimen eventually caused him insomnia and “pretty bad depression” that lasted for six months after filming wrapped.
“Something about that experience burned me out. Ultimately, they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up.”
Image source: Charley Gallay/Getty Images, Paramount Movies
#20 Rosamund Pike
Rosamund Pike went through a grueling physical transformation process for her role as Amy Dunne in the 2014 psychological thriller Gone Girl.
Throughout filming, Pike had to gain and lose about 14 pounds, not once, but three times.
“I had two weeks each time for each fluctuation. It was quite intense. It was like turning your body into a chemistry lab, and I couldn’t escape it,” she revealed in a 2014 interview with Vulture.
To manage her fluctuating weight, Pike trained with professional boxer Holly Lawson.
For the weight-gain phases, she focused on lifting heavy and eating calorie-dense meals rich in healthy fats and carbs.
But during the weight-loss phases, she switched to high-intensity cardio sessions that lasted up to four hours a day, while sticking to a diet of leafy greens and alkaline water.
Reflecting on the experience, the actress admitted it wasn’t something she’d ever want to repeat.
“I don’t know how good it is for you. It’s probably better to be gaining weight steadily over a long period of time.”
Image source: Jed Cullen/Dave Benett/Getty Images, 20th Century Studios
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