In Hollywood, it’s pretty common practice to see stars go the whole nine yards when it comes to preparing for a role. In an industry that is already very image-focused, actors often gain or lose weight at the request of their directors in order to fully immerse themselves in a character – even if it means putting their health at risk. Hollywood has seen major weight losses and gains from actors who are dedicated to their craft, and these extreme yo-yos are usually under the guidance of medical professionals and nutritionists, because putting your body through such stress can take its toll on your heart, bones, and other organs.
While we are not recommending any of the methods undertaken by these 15 celebrities, please be advised that some of the information in this article may serve as a trigger for those who have dealt with or are currently dealing with issues such as eating disorders or body dysmorphia. It should be no surprise that the majority of these scary-skinny celebrities lost the weight they did in order to accurately and effectively portray people who are dying. With all that being said, these are 15 celebrities who got scary-skinny for the sake of their character.
15 Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly has always been on the slender side of things, but for a role in her film, Shelter, Jennifer was cast as a homeless woman and took it upon herself to truly look the part. The film was directed by her husband, Paul Bettany, in 2013 and starred Jennifer as a homeless drug addict named Hannah. That combination of character qualities led Jennifer to try to really get into the skin of her role, and she eventually lost 25 pounds in order to effectively play the part.
Of course, Jennifer has previous experience playing a drug addict, with her role in the mind-bending Requiem for a Dream alongside Jared Leto (who also makes an appearance on this list). The regularly healthy actress and mother of three shocked people when she showed off her thin figure before it was revealed that it was being done for a role, and fortunately she’s bounced back to her normal gorgeous self.
14 Rooney Mara
She’s always looked a bit sickly with her ivory skin and slim frame, but to get into the role of Lisbeth Salander, the Goth computer hacker in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, actress Rooney Mara went even deeper into the dark role. In addition to getting all real piercings (including her nipple!), Rooney lost a fair amount of weight off her small body, although the actual amount has never been revealed.
While under the direction of David Fincher, a profile in Vogue recounts a dinner with Rooney and David, where David jokingly tells her what to eat – which isn’t much. In actuality, she ordered a dish of fish and barely ate any of it. Rooney says she has no idea how much weight she actually lost, because she never weighed herself, and that she in fact gained muscle from training (not that you would know it from this photo).
13 Beyoncé
Beyoncé is known for her curvaceous body – the woman sang “Bootylicious”! – which is why it was shocking to see her a sliver of her normal self during filming of the 2006 movie, Dreamgirls. In order to see a dramatic change between the older and younger version of her character, Deena Jones, Queen Bey lost 20 pounds – but she wasn’t healthy about it.
Beyoncé decided on the quick fix in the form of a crash diet, which is a common occurrence among celebrities who need to drop weight in a short amount of time – and it can have drastic effects on your metabolism. Within two weeks, she lost the weight under the Master Cleanse diet. The depravation cleanse allows dieters to drink only water, flavoured with lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. And that’s it. No food, and a laxative before bed. Beyoncé has since admitted it was a terrible diet that left her cranky and weak, and she’s since gone on to much healthier ways of staying fabulous and fit.
12 Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks didn’t lose an insane amount of weight just once, but twice – and both resulted in Oscar nominations (and one win). The first time, Tom lost 26 pounds for his role as a man suffering from AIDS in the film Philadelphia, and the second time he lost a staggering 55 pounds to play a man lost on an island by himself in Cast Away. To do so, he ate the way his character did, subsisting primarily on fish, fruit, and vegetables.
While Tom won as Oscar for his role in Philadelphia and was nominated for Cast Away, he had another lasting result of his crazy crash dieting: Type 2 diabetes. In 2013 in an interview with David Letterman, Tom revealed that he had been diagnosed with the disease after having struggled with blood sugar issues for decades. In fact, doctors suggested that it could have been his extreme weight losses and gains that led to his diagnosis!
11 Jared Leto
He talks about the merits of a clean vegan diet now, but for his role as a transgender woman with AIDS in Dallas Buyer’s Club, Jared Leto couldn’t even enjoy that. While Jared has never been a bulky guy, tending towards a leaner physique, he was downright skeletal in the role that won him the Oscar. The actor is famous for immersing himself in his roles, so it wasn’t a surprise to see him go to the extreme for his character.
In order to drop the 30-40 pounds required of him, Jared says he simply didn’t eat – and that it was not a good feeling. Beyond feeling cranky or weak, he said he felt ill and worried his family and friends that he had gone to far for a film. Despite his usually ripped look, Jared said the weight loss for the role left him feeling fragile and unsafe, but that he risked his health out of commitment to telling the stories of so many who never got to have theirs told.
10 Michael Fassbender
Another man on this list known for being a heartthrob, Michael Fassbender lost a shocking 42 pounds for his role as Bobby Sands in the aptly-named Hunger. This time, weight loss was very much the star of the film, as the true story followed Bobby, a young prisoner who led the Provisional Irish Republican Army hunger strike in 1981 – and died after 66 days without food.
Michael did consult with a nutritionist, who put him on a strict diet of nuts, berries, and sardines with moderate exercise that included skipping, walking, and yoga. As he sank further into the role, Michael recalled later that his starvation diet was like living in a “psychological prison”, and that he couldn’t stop himself from watching TV shows about food, reading recipes, counting calories, and obsessing about numbers. Fortunately, Michael was lucky enough to bounce back and now he’s returned to the sexy actor we’re familiar with.
9 Zoe Kravitz
Another actor whose extreme diet left a lasting mark, Zoe Kravitz got closer than she wanted to the darker side of diets while filming the role of a woman with anorexia in the movie The Road Within. For Zoe, who had already dealt with a real-life eating disorder throughout much of her adolescence and early adulthood, playing the role was reliving the past, as she dropped down to 90 pounds under the guidance of a nutritionist.
Playing into her past was worrying for her family, who regularly checked in with her to make sure she was okay, but Zoe felt it was a role she had to play, because the material involved came so naturally to her. Thankfully, Zoe was able to leave the role after filming wrapped, although she says it wasn’t without its difficulties. We’re just happy she was able to return to the healthy and beautiful woman she is!
8 Anne Hathaway
Unlike a lot of other actors, Anne Hathaway discouraged people from asking about the diet she used to drop pounds for her role as Fantine in Les Miserables. She refused to elaborate on her methods, because didn’t want to encourage women who might look at her unhealthy habits as a way to lose weight.
For her role as the poverty-stricken factory worker-turned-prostitute, Anne lost 25 pounds from her normally curvy figure, eating what she called “rabbit food”, alluding to the fact that she was only eating vegetables. In fact, Anne became so weak and fragile from her diet that she fell off a bike and broke her arm! In addition to her extreme thinness, Anne also chopped off all of her gorgeous hair because Fantine’s own hair is sheared off in the film, which made her skeletal body look all the more pronounced. Like many actors on this list, Anne’s commitment to her role ended up earning her an Oscar in the end.
7 Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey is known for his buff bod, as he usually plays meatier, country boy types and is famous for taking his shirt off – both on-screen and off. However, in a bid to have Hollywood take him more seriously as an actor, Matthew wowed audiences and critics in his role in Dallas Buyer’s Club, opposite Jared Leto. And, like Jared, Matthew dropped a significant amount of weight to pull it off.
Originally, Matthew planned to drop 40 pounds for his role as a Texas man with AIDS, but he soon decided that that wasn’t enough – and decided to drop 50. Over four months, Matthew restricted his diet and even copped to chewing ice to satisfy his hunger, and he also contacted another list-maker – Tom Hanks – for guidance on how he could pull off his drastic diet. Whatever advice he gave must have paid off, because Matthew ended up earning the award for Best Actor at the Academy Awards, and has fortunately returned to his previously healthy weight.
6 50 Cent
Bet you didn’t even know that was 50 Cent! The rapper and actor is as famous for his bulging muscles as he is for busting rhymes, which is why it was such a shock when he posted the first images that revealed the drastic weight loss he had endured for a role in the film Things Fall Apart, where he played a football player with cancer.
Taking crash dieting to the extreme, 50 lost 54 pounds in only nine weeks by surviving on a liquid diet and running on a treadmill for three hours a day. This is a majorly dangerous combination, as his low blood sugar and lack of nutrients could have hospitalized the rapper-actor. It’s not surprising that many of these roles that have required extreme weight loss are for characters who are dying, which was a very real possibility for 50 Cent! While the movie didn’t make a major impact, 50’s commitment to his craft definitely stood out.
5 Mila Kunis
To play the role of a rival ballet dancer in Black Swan, Mila Kunis had to drop pounds off her already petite figure. Thanks to five-hour-a-day ballet classes and a restricted diet, Mrs. Ashton Kutcher lost 20 pounds for her role of Lily, taking her down to 95 pounds – and she didn’t like it one bit.
Mila has since said the diet was awful and something she wouldn’t recommend to anyone. To stave off cravings, Mila, a former smoker, took cigarettes up again. Despite receiving guidance from a nutritionist throughout the duration of the role, Mila still hated her time watching her weight (and who wouldn’t?). While the talented actress has a reputation in Hollywood for being one of the sexiest women alive, Mila felt way more unattractive when filming, saying that she had “no shape, no boobs, no a$$. All you saw was bone. In real life, it looked disgusting.” Since her role in the movie, Mila has returned to her regular gorgeous form and given birth to two adorable children!
4 Natalie Portman
Opposite Mila Kunis in the film Black Swan, we have Natalie Portman, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Nina Sayers, the obsessively committed ballerina on the edge of madness. Another petite actress, Natalie lost 20 pounds for her role as well, through cross-training and ballet sessions that lasted five to eight hours a day. To get into character as the bone-and-sinew dancer, Natalie subsisted on a diet of nuts, fruit, and vegetables, and was working 16 hours a day, including her lengthy workouts.
There were times when she would lie awake and night and think she was dying, Natalie later admitted in interviews. The process was so stressful on her body that, even though she wanted to return to eating like she had before, she had to do so gradually, in order to keep her heart and other organs safe. Now that is taking Method acting to the extreme!
3 Matt Damon
Back in 1995, Matt Damon wasn’t yet the major star he is today as the titular hero in the Jason Bourne movies. Instead, he was a young actor who pushed his body to the absolute limit by losing 60 pounds for a film, dropping from his usual weight of 190. 60 pounds. To portray a heroin-addicted former soldier, Matt consumed only one food every day, at every meal: chicken breast. In a Reddit AMA, Matt admitted that he was running 13 miles a day as well in order to look the part, and in fact did not consult with a doctor or a nutritionist prior to filming – he just made it up as he went along.
This lack of planning and medical guidance caused Matt to be put under medical supervision for several months after filming, and he was put on medication to repair a damaged adrenal gland. Doctors later informed Matt that his strict all-chicken diet could have severely damaged his heart – or even killed him.
2 Chris Hemsworth
The face and body of Thor, Chris Hemsworth is famous for his fit body and fabulous muscles. The man makes women swoon over his bulging biceps and ripped abs, which is why it was such a shock to see him whittle himself away during the filming of In the Heart of the Sea. The starvation diet – which saw the actor surviving on only 500 calories a day – was done so he could get into the physical and mental space of a man lost at sea. When he revealed shocking photos of his protruding ribs and tiny waist, our collective jaw dropped.
Losing a total of 33 pounds, Chris at least had his costars to take the uncomfortable and unhealthy journey with him, as they were given rationed food like an egg, crackers, and celery. The film did fine, but was nothing compared to the major success of Chris’ Avengers franchise, where the Australian heartthrob bulked right back up to play the role of Thor.
1 Christian Bale
Another actor who drastically swung between weight losses and gains in order to properly play a character, talented actor Christian Bale is our number one pick for celebs who got scary-skinny for a role.
For his portrayal of an anorexic insomniac in the psychological thrilled The Machinist, Christian’s 60-pound weight loss was actually the result of a typo. Originally, the role was meant for an actor who was around 5’6” – Christian is six feet. In the film, his character is seen writing his weight on the wall, and these were in fact the actual pounds Christian weighed at the time of filming! The actor dropped to a staggering 121 pounds, and the photos are there to prove just how sickly he looked. He then quickly bulked up for his role as Batman, gaining back the weight in six weeks, which resulted in multiple doctor’s visits that continue as he puts his health on the line every time he prepares for a new film.
