One way to get noticed in Hollywood is to go through a shocking physical transformation for a film. There is no question that appearance plays a big part in how a character comes across, and these 10 actors made the ultimate sacrifice – their health – in order to do a role justice.
Above: Jared Leto in Reqiuem For A Dream (2000), Chapter 27 (2007) and Dallas Buyer’s Club (2013)
Jared Leto
Requiem for a Dream, Chapter 27 and Dallas Buyer’s Club
Jared Leto is one of those actors who yo-yos back and forth, content to change his body dramatically to fit a role. He lost 25 pounds to play a heroin addict in 2000’s Reqiuem for a Dream, gained 60 pounds to play John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman in 2007’s Chapter 27, and has lost close to 40 pounds to star opposite Matthew McConaughey, as a transgendered drug addict dying of AIDS in Dallas Buyer’s Club. Losing weight is definitely the more difficult end of the spectrum and Leto is reported as saying, “You eat raw vegetables and sometimes you just want to chew on something so you find something that has a lot of empty calories. I basically was chewing on shoe-leather, anything that would satiate the hunger a little bit.”
Of losing and gaining weight for a role, Leto says “it changes everything: how you walk, talk, laugh, breathe. It’s a transformative thing.”
