Top 10 Actors Who Got Buff for a Movie Role 2

In 2018, this actor appeared in not one, but two high profile comic book movies. While as Thanos he had the benefits of motion capture CGI makeover to help him fill the sizable shoes of the Mad Titan, playing Cable took good old fashioned hard work. Considering that Brolin was pushing fifty at the time of filming, both his transformation and his results were incredibly impressive. To play the hulking, time-traveling mutant, he trimmed down and packed on a ton of lean muscle. To do so in just about 11 weeks, Brolin says he spent three hours a day in the gym and fundamentally altered his diet, including cutting out sugar entirely. In hindsight, he said jokingly, he wishes he’d just used steroids.

To say that this actress made a huge impression with her role in this 2004 sports drama is an understatement. Swank’s performance was absolutely incredible, and she rightfully took home the Academy Award for Best Actress. Of course, in order to be able to play Mary Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald convincingly, the usually thin actress needed to get into boxing shape. So in preparation for the role, she naturally did a whole lot of boxing specific training. Working out 4 to 6 hours a day and following a diet aimed at putting on mass, she packed on 19 pounds - which is huge consider her frame and height. She started at 110 lbs and ended off at 129.

Have you ever tried pushing a jeep up a hill? Unless you’re working with a professional, don’t, but trust us when we say that it’s no small feat! As the star of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first female-led film, Brie Larson had a lot of pressure and expectations on her shoulders. Suffice it to say, in her prep to become Captain Marvel, she built up the sort of muscle mass that enables one to carry a heavy load. Larson trained for 9 months to get into superhero shape. And despite being a self described “not super athletic” person at the start of it, by the time filming began, she’d put on 15 pounds of muscle. We think the results speak for themselves.

She might the 21st century Mary Poppins, but before teaching the Banks children manners and important life lessons, Emily Blunt was slicing and dicing her way through hordes of extraterrestrials in this 2014 sci-fi action flick. For her role as the heroic Sergeant Rita Vrataski, Emily Blunt had to transform herself into a warrior worthy of her title as the “Angel of Verdun”. She only had about two and a half months to prep for the role, but by the time she showed up on set, co-star Tom Cruise reportedly stated that he’d never seen someone arrive so well prepared. Since she’d be filming in an exoskeleton suit weighing up to 85 pounds, she often trained while wearing weighted vests.

It’s no secret that we have a soft spot for this celebrity couple. What can we say, they just seem like a perfect match! And sure enough, not long after Emily Blunt got into fighting shape, so too did husband John Krasinski. We spent years getting to know Krasinski as the rather lanky Jim Halpert on “The Office”. Master of pranks and endlessly endearing? Absolutely. Action hero? We never would have seen it. But for his co-starring role in this Michael Bay war film, he got jacked! The goal was lean, clean muscle, and he managed to pack on 25 pounds of it. He was playing a Navy SEAL, and he trained like one, dropping from 25% body fat to 9% in 4 months.

Stallone is synonymous with fitness. Over the years, he’s transformed his body many times over. 1976’s “Rocky” was a true underdog story, and Sly had a physique to match. Sure, he was in better shape than the average man, but he wasn’t “movie boxer” fit. For the third film in the franchise however, he reportedly dropped down to a career low of 2.8% body fat, and did so by working out twice a day, six days a week - always working towards sleek, well-developed muscles. Of course, he’s not the only actor to radically change their body in the name of a boxing role - two other notable cases that deserve a mention include Robert De Niro for “Raging Bull” and Will Smith for “Ali”.

Hard as it is to remember after a decade and a half of Ryan “the bod” Reynolds, there was a time when this actor wasn’t ripped as well as hilarious. When he signed on to play Hannibal King, he had a good physique, but it was more “frat boy hot”, as shown in Van Wilder. For “Blade Trinity” he made his torso look like that of a Greek god. The actor added roughly 25 pounds of muscle, understandably wowing audiences when that shirt came off in the 2004 film. He’s largely maintained an incredible physique ever since, but when he signed on to play the Merc with a Mouth, he packed on an additional seven pounds of muscle.

The key to surviving the early 1990s? Making sure that Sarah Connor doesn’t think that you’re a Terminator sent from the future to kill her son. Because that’s a fight you’re going to lose. By the time we caught up with Linda Hamilton’s character in the sequel, she’d become a tough-as-nails, fierce, resourceful and thoroughly pragmatic individual; and Hamilton developed a physique to match her character. She got lean and sinewy in a way that had rarely been seen before, or since, from a leading actress on the big screen. In preparation for the role, Hamilton embraced military-style training and it paid off in spades.

For many people, Henry Cavill is the definition of the superhero body. The caped crime fighters seen in comic books are known for their unrealistic broad shoulders, massive biceps and just generally exaggerated musculature - physiques that are “impossible”. Well, at least as far as heroes on the big screen go, Cavill has brought the human body just about as close as you can get. What makes the Superman actor’s accomplishment so impressive is that his body, back in the day, would have best been described as relatively soft. As a kid, he was teased for his weight. But for his 2011 roll in “Immortals”, he got freaking cut, before bulking up in a huge way for his debut as Superman in 2013’s “Man of Steel”.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions

Charlie Sheen
“Hot Shots! Part Deux” (1993)

Ben Affleck
“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016)

Demi Moore
“G. I. Jane” (1997)

Adam Driver
“Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi” (2005)

Taylor Lautner
“Twilight” (2008)

It was a close race between Henry Cavill and Chris Evans, but ultimately, we felt that the Captain America actor deserved our top spot. Though Cavill has arguably put on more bulk, Evans has packed on an impressive amount of mass and maintained a high level of muscle definition. In short, he’s both jacked and cut, to a ridiculous degree. More impressive still, he’s seemingly only continued to improve his physique with each subsequent appearance as Steve Rogers. Evans is naturally slim, so it took hard work to widen his frame, and he achieved his goals by prioritizing tried and true exercises like squats, deadlifts and chin-ups. It’s hard to argue with the results!