Although we have makeup, prosthetics, and CGI at our fingertips these days, some actors prefer to completely commit to their character by undergoing dramatic physical transformations to embody the person they are playing.
Rapper 50 Cent famously dropped 54 pounds for the film All Things Fall Apart, while Christian Bale memorably lost an insane amount of weight for 2004’s The Machinist.
And on the other side of the coin, stars like Sydney Sweeney, Zac Efron and Hugh Jackman have spent hours in the gym perfecting their physiques for movie roles.
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As we are all aware, there are a lot of risks which come along with rapid weight loss or gain - and Jared Leto ended up completely ruining his appetite due to his drastic transformation for the 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club.
The 52-year-old, from Louisiana, is renowned for his commitment to method acting and when he gets a new gig, fans know to expect him to give it his all... and sometimes, this can be to a fault.
For example, he refused to break character when he played the role of Doctor Michael Morbius in the 2022 superhero flick and would use crutches while limping around to master the mannerisms of the diseased biochemist.
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But seen as though it took him 45 minutes to hobble to the toilet, the crew weren't too keen on his dedication to the role - as it cost them a lot of time and money.
But it was Leto himself who suffered the consequences following his unbelievable preparation to play Rayon, a transgender woman living with HIV and battling a drug habit, in Dallas Buyers Club.
He starred alongside Matthew McConaughey in the film, who also lost a good chunk of weight for the hard-hitting drama, however, the pair used completely different methods to slim down.
Suicide Squad actor Leto lost nearly three stone before stepping into the shoes of Rayon, seeing the scales tip to a tiny eight stone.
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Explaining how he did it, he told TheWrap: "I stopped eating. It was 30 or 40 pounds. After a while, I stopped counting.
"It changes the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you think."
Obviously, this is completely unadvisable and an extremely unhealthy way to shed some pounds, as Leto later found out.
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The Thirty Seconds To Mars frontman previously told Yahoo that he 'went method' to play Rayon and refused to break character, but warned people that it was not healthy to take heed of his weight-loss technique.
He explained: "I wouldn’t do it at the drop of a hat, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone and I think it can be incredibly dangerous. But it depends what your putting into your body and taking out of it as well.
"I think people get concerned when you lose a lot of weight because you appear really ill and you’re fragile, and that’s always concerning to the people who are close to you. But it was a necessity."
As a result of him skipping meals, Leto explained that he stopped enjoying food when production on Dallas Buyers Club wrapped as he had become so used to the restrictive diet.
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He added: "Your stomach gets so small that you can only eat a few tablespoons of something and you're full already. So you can’t go out and gorge, it doesn’t work like that.
"It would be fun to maybe at the end eat an entire pie, but you end up just looking at it."
McConaughey, on the other hand, slimmed down by three-and-a-half stone to play protagonist Ron Woodroof - but he made it his mission to do it 'in as healthy a way as possible'.
The cinema legend, 54, explained: "I worked with a nutritionist and gave myself four months to do it. I didn’t do it in 20 days. I did in four months and so I gradually lost weight.
"I think it would be more dangerous to put on 50 pounds, than to lose 50 pounds. Ask me in ten years how it affected me.
"It’s taken a long time to come back, the coming back is more dangerous than the losing."
But unlike Leto, he still had his appetite by the end of the film - and he celebrated Dallas Buyers Club wrapping by going and eating 'the ultimate cheeseburger'.
Topics: Health, Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Film
Olivia Burke