Preparing for action roles sometimes requires a brilliant physique, especially when playing beefy characters in genres like superheroes. There are those who are enough with a few intense days at the gym, but performers like Hugh Jackman usually choose to work on this aspect beyond their capabilities, even going so far as to put their health at risk with diets and treatments to gain muscle that even he himself qualifies. of dangerous.
He talked about it in an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2017, when he was in the middle of promoting Logan . Until the announcement of Deadpool 3 , this was going to be Jackman’s final farewell to the X-Men universe, to which he had been linked since its beginnings in 2000. Therefore, it is possible to think that he felt he had to put more energy into it than ever. to leave his legacy well sealed in the character , which added to the proposal of the film, which presented an older Wolverine with a cruder physique, inevitably led him to this decision.
In the intervention, Jackman joked that after leaving aside the mutant he could afford to eat whatever he wanted and gain weight, but he highlighted that, since the first film, he always had to be very careful with his physique and face hard days. of training that required more effort than he imagined . In fact, he said that when he put on Wolverine’s claws for the first time, he thought he could be in shape in just three weeks, which ended up being an impossible mission, disrupting the filming of X-Men and forcing the team to film their scenes. bare-chested at the end of production, when his muscles were much more defined.
When asked about this latest film, how he achieved such a raw and heartbreaking physique, the actor confessed that this time he didn’t beat around the bush and prepared ahead of time. Even though his body was already in good shape and makeup for body injuries would help, he chose to spend three months training hard in the gym and risk an excessive method of body dehydration so that his muscles looked much more defined. .
Did not drink water for a long period This required spending several days without drinking any type of liquid , which is obviously a considerable health risk. However, Jackman clarified that this process requires a previous phase of extreme hydration to help the body maintain composure and have all the energy possible before stopping drinking.
“You have to be in very good shape, but the previous three months are very specific,” the actor began by telling host Stephen Colbert. “You increase your water consumption. You have about 10 liters of water, that is, three gallons of water a day. Then you stop drinking about 36 hours before filming, but since you have drunk so much water you are urinating all the time.”
Colbert, surprised, stressed to Jackman that going three days without drinking water means almost certain death , to which he responded that he tried to get as close as possible to that limit, start recording immediately and not waste a single second with his dehydrated body. . “You get as close as you can and then you put your claws on. You lose like 4.5 liters of water,” Jackman added.
Aware of the risks that this method entails, the actor did not hesitate to look towards the audience and warned them not to try to follow in his footsteps . However, it seems that he also did not want to follow them in his return with Deadpool 3 . Because this time he didn’t spend three months training like the last time, but twice as much.
“I’ve learned that you can’t rush it. I’ve learned that it takes time,” he said after his participation in the film was confirmed during an interview with Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? (via Collider ). “So we have six months. And I’m not doing any other work. I’m going to be with my family and training. That will be my job for six months. And I’m really in shape right now.” And since then he shared with his followers different routines where he hinted that he was recovering Wolverine’s body at a slow but sure pace.
In short, with extreme diets or not, it is almost certain that he had a whole team of health and nutrition specialists at the service of his getting in shape and that he was controlled at all times, although that does not take away from the titanic task of lending himself to them. do something like that.
