#1 Henry Cavill - Man of Steel
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Henry Cavill trained for months with an extreme workout routine and diet of nearly 5,000 calories a day. For this shirtless scene, he dropped to just 1,500 calories a day for 6 weeks, and got to just 7% body fat. Right after filming this scene, he was rewarded with ice cream and pizza.
#2 Chris Hemsworth - Thor
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Chris Hemsworth ate enormous amounts of boiled chicken, eggs, protein shakes, and lots of carbs while intensely working out for 6 months. He gained a lot of weight for the role as well. When he was cast, he read blogs and forums online of people saying he was too skinny for the role, and could never do it. This motivated him to put forth the effort to turn his body into what it became. He also did yoga for flexibility, and chopped wood to practice wielding the hammer.
#3 Tom Hardy - Many movies including Bronson, Warrior, and Dark Knight Rises
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On top of his diet, Tom Hardy worked out four times a day to become Bane. He worked out in the morning, at lunchtime, in the early evening, and before bed. Each one was focused on strength training.
#4 Tom Hanks - Cast Away
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Tom hanks put on 50 pounds before production began for Cast Away. Production was then halted for an entire year for him to grow his hair out and lose the weight. He lost 55 pounds.
#5 Matt Damon - Courage Under Fire
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For Courage Under Fire, Matt Damon deprived himself of food and lost 40 pounds, and ran 13 miles a day. He became frail and had to be medically supervised. Unfortunately for him, at that time, he was not yet a big star, and did not have a nutritionist helping him like other stars did, and it took a few years for him to get back to normal.
#6 Christian Bale - Many movies including The Machinist, Rescue Dawn, Batman, and American Hustle.
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Christian Bale lost 63 pounds for his role in the Machinist, eating only an apple and a can of tuna fish every day. he also started smoking to curb his appetite. After getting back to a normal weight a few years later, he then gained an additional 40 pounds for American Hustle in order to look pudgy, and actually herniated two discs in the process. He also shaved his hair into a comb-over. He has lost and gained weight multiple times in between for different roles.
#7 Chris Evans - Captain America & The Avengers
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The special effects people working on Captain America occasionally had to make Chris Evans body look smaller for his part, never bigger. To prep for his part, he did two hours a day working on one specific muscle group until it was torn to shreds, (his words). He didn't do any cardio, as he needed to bulk up, and drank tons of protein shakes and ate grilled turkey. He also says that he feels no one's body should be this big, as he has suffered a few injuries to his joints and muscles as a result.
#8 Tobey Maguire - Spiderman
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Tobey Maguire went through a five month regimen of exercise, weight training, and martial arts six times a week, as well as eating a high protein meal four to six times a day. His bulk is absolutely nothing compared to what the superhero actors are doing today, however, as illustrated with our final person on the list.
#9 Hugh Jackman - X-Men & Wolverine movies
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Hugh Jackman has slowly gained muscle as the X-Men movies have continued. However, for the most recent ones, he has really put his time in at the gym, and eaten very clean, perfect diets arranged by his nutritionists. His trainer says his secret was increasing strength with the low reps (1-5), and increasing capacity with the high reps (8-12). If you want proof, just look at this picture below that has gone viral around the internet.
Who else went through crazy body transformations for their movies? Let us know and don't forget to like us at www.facebook.com/simplefilmcritics.