How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
#1How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 7:15pm
I know in movies, it is very common for actors/actresses to gain or lose weight for certain roles. Some will even add muscle and undergo a strenuous work out regimen for a role in a movie.
In musicals/plays, it seems a costume is made to make someone look fatter or slimmer. Do actors/actresses in live theater make an effort to change their physique for a role in a show? I would imagine it would even be much harder in live theater to maintain their new physique throughout the run of the show.
The reason I ask, is a certain actress seemed to have put on a significant amount of weight since the last time I saw her in a different show. She was much thinner in the other show. The increase in weight I believe is better for the part, which makes me wonder if the added weight is on purpose.
I don't want to call out the specific actress in order not to offend anyone..
Not to be confused with Dave19.
Updated On: 7/25/16 at 07:15 PM
#2How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 7:42pm
Alex Brightman had to gain weight (and maintain it) for School of Rock.
Andy Karl had to be very fit for Rocky, changing his daily fitness routine and being very physically active during the show as well.
Ramin Karimloo also got very in shape for his ValJean in Canada and Broadway, even though he wasn't required for the role, but he has said he was motivated by taking on such a big role on Broadway.
I think it's harder to do it in theater because you have to keep this figure for so long as opposed to a movie where once you're done filming you can go back to your normal self.
StephieElise
Featured Actor Joined: 11/12/12
#3How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 8:25pm
It can also be hard to maintain weight gain if the role is physically demanding thereby causing you to lose the weight. I know a lot of women who play Tracy Turnblad need a fat suit by the end of their run.
#4How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 8:36pm
Bruce
My father (AIDS)
My sister (AIDS)
My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS)
The gays and the straights
And the white and the spades
Tag
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/19/05
#5How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 8:41pm
Alex Brightman had to gain weight (and maintain it) for School of Rock.
Except that now he is drastically thinner from when he started the run. I think he said he's lost something like 50lbs.
#6How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 8:42pm
michael cerveris has gained a lot of weight for Fun Home. Or at least, during the run he has, not sure if it has been for the role
Stand-by Joined: 12/31/69
#7How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 9:18pm
Call_me_jorge said: "Bruce
"
Are you talking about the boys in Matilda who play Bruce? I always thought they wore a fat suit??
#8How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 10:01pm
Bruce in Matilda was definitely wearing a fat suit on tour, at least in Boston. It wasn't even subtle -- he doesn't wear it in all the scenes! He's not wearing it when they're in gym gear.
#9How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 10:14pm
Maybe Jorge was talking about Bruce from Fun Home, also mentioned by buhbuhbilly 
I did notice on my 2nd viewing of Fun Home that Cerveris had gained some weight, but I'm not so sure it was for the role. No judgement here, though! He's talented and handsome whatever his weight.
VotePeron
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/2/13
#10How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/25/16 at 10:49pm
Alex Brightman has made it VERY clear that he was not required in any way to gain weight. He did it for personal reasons as an actor in a role, not contractually. That is why he hasn't re-gained any or maintained it since he lost it.
All Bruce's, no matter their real physical build, where fat suits for act 1 of Matilda.
#11How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/26/16 at 12:17am
To me the most obvious is the weight loss for Hedwig. Poor NPH never bounced back.
#12How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/26/16 at 3:39am
Michael Crawford had to gain a lot of weight to play Count Fosco in the original London production of The Woman in White and this originated health issues to him.
#13How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/26/16 at 7:55am
Michael Crawford had to gain a lot of weight to play Count Fosco in the original London production of The Woman in White and this originated health issues to him.
That was a fat suit, actually. Michael Ball had the same issue when he played the role on Broadway.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Skimbleshanks2
Broadway Star Joined: 2/11/15
#14How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/26/16 at 9:15am
I noticed MICHAEL CERVERIS' weight gain the second time I saw FUN HOME ... He looked slimmer the third time I saw it ... It suits the role ... He is oddly sexy to me ... My husband said he'd give me a "hall pass" for CERVERIS ... :)
"See that poster on the wall? Rocky Marciano." - Andy Karl as Rocky in 'ROCKY'
#15How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/26/16 at 10:18am
In general, I seem to think most theatre actors (outside of character actors and older actors) need to maintain a very high level of fitness because at any given time they may get the call for a job that requires dancing and who knows what kind of costume or body exposure. They are "stage ready" at all times. I don't think most do a ton of gaining or losing, but like in Karl's case he did some muscle building and sculpting. I think gaining weight would be dangerous for a stage actor.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
John Adams
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/1/13
#16How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/26/16 at 11:21am
RE: "how often", I think the obvious answer would be "as often as needed". In the case of Alex Brightman, my guess is that the weight gain was initially to make him look specifically more like Jack Black, but I don't believe the weight is essential to the character, and was kind of a cop-out to begin with. The fact that he can still be accepted as the character now, without the extra weight might bear that out.
I think there are plenty of costuming and make-up tricks that can make an actor appear heavier or thinner without having to gain or lose weight. I think, too that it's more often the case that it only really matters when an actor is required to appear in some state of undress. For example, I think the men and women in Mama Mia and American Psycho are/were probably more conscientious about going to the gym than they might normally be.
One case where I felt an actor made a 'wrong' choice regarding their physical appearance was a show I saw at The Bailiwick in Chicago, during their annual Pride series. The play was about an older man in a relationship with a much younger man, and the play required both actors to be nude in the second act. The actor playing the older man obviously spent some time at the gym to look good without his clothes. Unfortunately, his semi-buff appearance looked and seemed very unrealistic within the context of the characters. It fought against the character's (verbalized) insecurities about being with such a young man, and made the younger character's responses of acceptance seem less 'true' (because the older actor looked pretty darned good, and seemed physically appealing to any age).
luvbrdway
Featured Actor Joined: 10/21/08
#17How often do Actors/Actresses gain or lose weight for a role?
Posted: 7/28/16 at 2:26pm
Donny Osmond worked out a lot for Joseph. Megan Hilty lost a bit for Noises Off.
Don't know if they were asked to, or if they did it on their own because of skimpy costumes.
Videos