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Nick Jonas has more new music debuting in the coming days and, while we’re absolutely thrilled to hear his voice once again, we need to discuss another part about him: his manly physique. The 21-year-old has not only been exercising his vocal chords, but he’s been working on, well, EVERYTHING ELSE too for his upcoming TV series, Kingdom. He gained 15 pounds for it!
That got us to thinking about all of the other babes in Hollywood who bulked up for their roles. Here are 15 such actors who packed on the pounds (or lost, in some cases) to look even hunkier on the big screen:
Taylor Lautner
Gained 30 pounds of muscle from the original Twilight movie to The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
"[I was] doubling the amount of calorie intake I had before, which was just really tough, eating every two hours. It was the hardest part for sure."
"Sometimes my trainer, when we were filming — because he was up filming New Moon with us — he'd wake me up at six in the morning and be like, 'Hey, have a protein shake.' And then I'd go back to sleep for a couple hours."
Photo: Summit
Zac Efron
Gained 18 pounds of muscle for The Lucky One; weighed in at 145 lbs. when production began.
"By the end of the movie I didn't recognize myself. You hear about guys like Christian Bale who dive into it and are really able to transform. I've always wondered if I had the willpower to actually do it. And I'll always have pride around the sense that I can."
Photo: Disney/Warner Bros.
Chris Pratt
Lost 60 pounds in six months for Guardians of the Galaxy.
"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. It wasn't like I was triggered to just gorge myself and get really fat again."
Photo: CBS/Twitter (@prattprattpratt)
Theo James
Bulked up for Divergent.
"I'm okay fitness-wise, but I wanted to put on some weight... I wanted to put on some muscle so that [Four] would be as dangerous as possible. I didn't want him to be a steroid-head or anything, but I wanted him to look like someone that you wouldn't want to have an altercation with."
"For the first month I was kind of training six or seven days a week, eating a lot, trying to kind of bulk up in a way that I thought was correct for the character."
Photo: Warner Bros./Summit
Ryan Reynolds
Gained 25 pounds of muscle for Blade: Trinity.
According to Men's Fitness, the actor had a three-month-long workout, six days a week, which consisted of a 3,200-calorie daily diet.
Photo: Paramount/New Line Cinema
Sam Claflin
Bulked up for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Not only did he consume nothing but chicken and asparagus for three months straight, but he went to the gym every single day for about 100 days. NBD.
Photo: Disney/Lionsgate
Chris Evans
Gained 20 pounds of muscle for Captain America: The First Avenger.
"The tricky part was eating. Just eating everything all the time [was exhausting]."
"Ugh, [there was] so much training, it was tough. I've always been in the gym and worked out and I've had to get big for other films, but nothing like this."
"They flew a trainer over from London. I was in Boston working on a film, and we did three months prior to shooting. We were working out every day for just about two hours, sometimes twice a day, and it was just grueling. I've never trained like that in my life."
Photo: Millennium Entertainment/Paramount
Alexander Ludwig
Gained 30 pounds of muscle for Lone Survivor.
"I wanted to put on as much weight as I possibly could to make it look as real as possible. A lot of these guys aren't skinny, normal-weight guys, and Shane [Patton, the man he portrayed in the film] definitely wasn't, so I gained 30 pounds of muscle for this role. A lot of the workout regimen I actually developed myself. I didn't have enough time between Grown Ups 2 and Lone Survivor to actually work with a trainer. I ate like a caveman — nutrition is so important. I ate lots of meat and vegetables. I did lots of heavy lifting — lower number of lifts and heavy weight. I did supersets of chest and I did this one ab workout I created. It was exhausting and gruesome. I'd work out six days a week. Every day I'd alternate among back, biceps, chest and triceps, then legs."
Photo: Lionsgate/Instagram (@alexanderludwig)
Andrew Garfield
Muscled up for The Amazing Spider-Man.
According to stunt coordinator Andy Armstrong, "They stripped him down to probably around 100 pounds, then built him back up in core strength. He was the same size when he started, but his strength was incredible."
Photo: Columbia
Chris Hemsworth
Gained 20 pounds of lean mass for Thor.
"I feel as if I've been busy, but all I've been doing is eating all day. Eating when you're not hungry and taking in that amount of food is exhausting."
"Rest and exercise were equally as important."
Photo: Relativity Media/Paramount