Several actors have taken it upon themselves, with trainers and physicians on hand, to alter their body for a movie role, but a lot of times this still takes a heavy toll on their bodies since the amount of time they have to achieve this tends to be far less than is considered to be healthy. There are plenty of ways to drop and gain weight in a very short period of time, and it’s possible that it can be monitored so as to maintain the health of the individual, but it’s also an act that the body can rebel against in a big way. The human body, resilient as it is, doesn’t always like being messed around with and will make this known in various ways if the health of the individual begins to decline. But for the upcoming movie Cherry, Tom Holland had to endure a training regimen that’s absolutely brutal not just because of what he had to endure, but because of how it made him feel and due to the fact that it shouldn’t be something that people strive for in the first place. But for a role, a lot of people are willing to do quite a bit in order to make certain that they portray as accurate a picture as they can. The fact that Tom had to portray a tortured veteran that was also a drug addict demanded a little more, and as he describes it the experience was rather brutal. Here’s what he had to say via MovieWeb:
“I had to lose a lot of weight for Cherry. And I don’t think I would ever do that again. I lost around 27lbs by running in a bin bag every day… It was awful. Truly. It was only about ten weeks out of shooting that I realized what I was getting into and what I need to do to transform into the role. So I sat down with my trainer, George Ashwell, and he told me, ‘Right, you need to eat only 500 calories a day and run ten miles. Go.’ Great. It was brutal. And then bulking up, going from a drug addict to shooting scenes as a marine? I got very sick, actually. And it’s changed my relationship with food completely. I think I would find it very difficult to find a role that would warrant that sort of abuse on my body again.”
It’s easy to think that Tom had to go through some intense training for the role of Spider-Man, but this sounds next level compared to his time in the MCU since dropping this much weight and only being allowed to eat is rough. Christian Bale could have probably given him a few pointers on this, as could Matthew McConaughey, as they’ve both dropped and gained weight for roles in the past. But hearing how few calories he was allowed per day is enough to make a person cringe since the human body needs more than that on average. The amount of calories that actors have been said to consume when they’re getting in shape for a role is insane in a lot of ways since most people consume that number of calories a few times over in a single meal. It’s not that surprising that Tom became ill, and it’s definitely not a surprise that he’s looking at things differently now. One has to wonder if any of the other actors that have done this are having the same thoughts or if they ever did in the first place. A body can only take so much before it starts to break down from continued abuse, and while some folks might be a little more tolerant of this abuse than others, there’s really no need to push the envelope in such a manner since, to be honest, this can wear a person out and shorten their career without fail, which is not something that many actors need to strive for. But in the pursuit of a role, it’s hard to say what some folks are going to do.
Some of those that have done this in the past have either sworn it off, slowed down on it, or have stopped doing it altogether since it is too hard on their bodies to slim down and then bulk up over shorter periods of time. Altering one’s physical appearance is easy enough from a cosmetic standpoint, but when it comes to weight and the taxing process that its continual fluctuation can put on the body’s different and very important systems, it’s not hard to see what’s bound to happen eventually. There’s a reason that those who are overweight are advised to find a way to slim down, and why those that are too thin are advised to bulk up a bit. The body needs some kind of balance to function properly, but when one crosses the line between healthy and unhealthy too often the body is bound to say ‘to hell with this’ eventually and just quit. Okay, so it will struggle to survive, but that’s no picnic either according to many that have told their stories.
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