21 actors who lost weight for movie roles

Murphy, who plays the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer told The New York Times he "had to lose quite a bit of weight" for the role.

Speaking with The Guardian, Murphy elaborated: "I was running on crazy energy; I went over a threshold to where I was not worrying about food or anything. I was so in it, a state of hyper something. But it was good because the character was like that."

"He never ate," Murphy added, referencing that the real Oppenheimer lived off "cigarettes and pipes."

Murphy withheld from revealing exactly how much weight he lost or his diet, saying, "I don't want it to be, 'Cillian lost x weight for the part.'"

Instead, he said he wouldn't advise anyone else do what he did.

Costar Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer's wife in the film, told Extra, "He could only eat, like, an almond every day. He was so emaciated."

Blunt and Damon, who also stars in the Christopher Nolan film, told Entertainment Tonight Murphy sometimes skipped out on cast meals because of his diet.

The "Cuff It" singer went on a liquid diet for the 2006 movie, telling Oprah at the time she lost 20 pounds in two weeks.

"It was difficult because I love food. I love to eat. I did a fast, Master Cleanse, for 14 days," Beyoncé said of wanting to transform for the role in order to channel performers who were "thinner" than her in the '60s.

"It was difficult," she added, saying it was her choice to lose the weight. "Everybody was eating Krispy Kremes around me. I was grouchy, but I did it."

"Dreamgirls" followed the history of the musical group during the 1960s and '70s.

Portman was on a carrots-and-almond diet, working five-to-eight hours a day for a year to slim her already trim figure down for the lead role in Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan."

The 33-year-old actress revealed the extent of her preparation for the role to Entertainment Weekly.

"There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die," Portman told EW. "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."

After filming ended, the singer quickly returned to carbs. At the time, she had also announced a pregnancy with her now-husband, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, who she met on set.

Kunis was pretty vocal about her dismay with her frail body.

"I could see why this industry is so f----d up, because ... I would literally look at myself in the mirror and I was like: 'Oh my God! I had no shape, no boobs, no a--...,'" she told the Daily Mail. "All you saw was the bone. I was like 'this looks gross.'"

After filming, the actress binged out at a Panda Express in JFK Airport and an In-N-Out Burger in Los Angeles.

Kunis joked, "It took me five months to lose 20 pounds, and it took me hours to gain it back!"

Pratt said he ditched beer to take on the role of Peter Quill. He also divulged his workout routine with a personal trainer and nutritionist to Men's Fitness.

It consisted of running, swimming, boxing, kickboxing, a triathlon, and consuming 4,000 calories a day.

"I actually lost weight by eating more food, but eating the right food, eating healthy foods, and so when I was done with the movie my body hadn't been in starvation mode," Pratt told People magazine.

Christian Bale wasn't even asked by director Brad Anderson of "The Machinist" to drop to 122 pounds for the film. He told the BBC he wanted to do it all on his own.

"I was intrigued by a perverse nature of mine just to see if I can go beyond what I've been told is actually safe and OK, and see if I could push the limits," Bale said.

Bale's daily diet consisted of consuming vitamins, running, and eating an apple and can of tuna a day. He then gained nearly 100 pounds, getting back up to 220 pounds in about five months to play the Caped Crusader in "Batman Begins."

"I will adjust for what is needed," Bale told People. "But only if I have quite an obsession about that role."

Anne Hathaway shaved her head and dropped 16 pounds on a detox diet for "Les Miserables."

"This diet makes me break out, so I love that," Hathaway joked to Allure. "Nothing like living on hummus and radishes and then be all, 'And I got a pimple. Yeah!'"

The actress also said on "Chelsea Lately" that she became a vegetarian for "The Dark Knight Rises," living off of kale and dust for training.

Hanks has lost and gained weight for a few roles, but his 55-pound weight loss for 2000's "Castaway" was his most extreme diet.

Hanks told Entertainment Weekly what he missed most while shedding the pounds:

''Oh, those FFs, man. Those fries from France…," said Hanks. "The only thing I did not give up was coffee ... Nope, wasn't about to!"

Hanks previously gained 30 pounds for the role of Jimmy Dugan in 1992's "A League of Their Own" and subsequently lost 26 pounds to play AIDS-stricken Andrew Beckett in "Philadelphia."

Kingsley, whose father is of Indian descent, underwent extensive preparation for the role — reading biographies, studying photographs, shaving his head, and losing 20 pounds on Gandhi's very own vegetarian diet.

While talking about his role to The New York Times, Kingsley said, ''When I have totally immersed myself in the mechanical, logical preparation of a part, if I and my craft are totally bonded and fully exploited, something else in me is awakened and begins to inform my work."

In 2010, 50 Cent shocked fans with a photo of himself looking unrecognizably skinny for a role as a promising college football player struggling with cancer.

The rapper revealed he dropped 55 pounds for the movie "All Things Fall Apart" using a nine-week liquid diet and working out multiple times a day.

The "Thor" actor told "Good Morning America" he dropped 33 pounds in about four weeks on a 500-calorie-a-day diet.

Hemsworth expanded a bit more about his diet with Men's Health.

"At one point, a day's rations were a boiled egg, a couple of crackers, and a celery stick," said Hemsworth, who shared a photo of his weight loss while prepping for the role on Instagram.

He said it was a diet he "wouldn't recommend."

"'Red Sparrow' was the first time that I was really hungry, and disciplined. I can't be in character as an ex-ballerina and not feel like an ex-ballerina," Lawrence told Vanity Fair.

The actress said she couldn't wait to eat European street food when she was done filming the ballet sequences of the film.

"I can't work on a diet. I'm hungry. I'm standing on my feet. I need more energy. I remember having a meltdown, freaking out that I had eaten five banana chips," she said.

"It was for a role. It's always me, just different incarnations, different roles, different costumes and different sizes," Stevens said on "The Graham Norton Show" in 2013.

Since starring in "Beauty and the Beast" the star swims, does yoga, and has a dairy-free diet.

McConaughey lost 47 pounds to play an HIV patient in "Dallas Buyers Club," a role which won him an Oscar.

"The dieting was pretty hard-core. I was losing 7 pounds every week," McConaughey told the Daily Mail. "I'd have a Diet Coke, two egg whites in the morning, a piece of chicken, then another Diet Coke... That was rough.

"I got down to [143lbs] and I was always hungry, and irritable... My body resembled a baby bird with its mouth open, crying, 'Feed me, feed me,' and you realize momma bird ain't going to feed you. It's hard," he added.

The actor also ate tapioca pudding with a tiny sugar spoon slowly to make it last longer. More recently, McConaughey gained 40 pounds for a role in "Gold."

"I just basically didn't eat. I ate very little," said Leto to EOnline.com about dropping to about 116 pounds to play a transsexual with HIV and then AIDS in the 2013 movie.

"It was 30 or 40 pounds," Leto told The Wrap of how much weight he lost. "After a while, I stopped counting."

Leto said the weight loss affected everything from the way he walked and talked to making him feel fragile and unsafe.

The then-28-year-old lost weight to play a young woman battling anorexia in Netflix's original movie, "To the Bone."

Collins previously battled eating disorders in the past and was "apprehensive" about playing an anorexic role.

"It was kind of nerve-wracking. You're doing it for a part, but it's something so close to you," Collins told Elle.com. "There's a fine line between, are you going to fall back into it, are you not? But I was so aware of why I was doing it — for a greater purpose — and also I was more mature."

Driver and Andrew Garfield played Jesuit priests who travel to Japan to find their mentor. After traveling for two years from Portugal, Martin Scorsese wanted it to look like they were dropping weight.

"He asked us to lose a lot of weight. I didn't know how much that was going to be." Driver told Interview of Scorsese. "And, I can't control what's happening in scenes, but I could control when I ate food.

"That visual part of the storytelling, I don't think I've ever taken it to the extreme before," he added. "It's an interesting thing. You're so hungry and so tired at some points that there's nothing you can do—you're not adding anything on top of what you're doing."

Hill said he went to a nutritionist to help him slim down for the 2011 movie. He told ABC News his diet looked like something from a six-year-old's birthday party — chicken fingers and pizza. He started eating more veggies.

"I went to a nutritionist and then I started physically running instead of emotionally running," Hill said on Kidd Kraddick in the Morning. He said he also started doing push ups each day.

"I think I started at like 10 and then I just worked my way up and now I do 100 every day," he said of doing push-ups.

The Joker is Batman's biggest foe and to take on the role in Warner Bros.' standalone movie, Phoenix ate little more than an apple a day.

"I wanted the character to look hungry and unhealthy, like a malnourished wolf," director Todd Phillips said in the film's production notes, saying it was his idea for Phoenix to lose the weight.

Because of the actor's weight change, star Zazie Beetz said they couldn't go back and do reshoots.

At a 35th anniversary panel for the film in 2018, Pfeiffer said she went on an extreme diet to play the film's cocaine addict.

"I tried to time it so that as the movie went on I became thinner and thinner and more emaciated," Pfieffer said of what was supposed to be a three-month movie shoot.

However, the movie wound up going on for six weeks longer than expected.

"I was starving by the end of it because the one scene that was the end of the film where I needed to be my thinnest, it was [pushed to the] next week and then it was the next week and then it was the next week," she said. "I literally had members of the crew bringing me bagels because they were all worried about me and how thin I was getting. I think I was living on tomato soup and Marlboros."

The actor told Variety he didn't take on any special diet. Instead, he just stopped eating.

"I would try to eat as few calories as possible," said Gyllenhaal. "I knew if I was hungry that I was in the right spot. Physically, it showed itself, but chemically and mentally, I think it was even a more fascinating journey. It became a struggle for me."

Gyllenhaal added that he would often go on 15-mile runs from his home to the film's set.