BODY DOUBLE

Hollywood’s 10 Most Shocking Transformations

most-shocking-transformationsHave you heard? Taylor Lautner grew a beard! Jake Gyllenhaal lost weight!

Hollywood has been abuzz with major body transformations for as long as it’s existed, even though some of the most shocking full-body makeovers have happened within the last decade. More stars now than ever before are striving to achieve the perfect form for the perfect role, whether that means a major addition of body hair, a 60-pound weight gain or the complete loss of innocence.

So in honor of that thing you first saw growing on Taylor Lautner’s face this morning, here are 10 of Hollywood’s most shocking transformations:

taylor-lautner

Taylor Lautner

Twilight heartthrob and former Taylor Swift accessory Taylor Lautner first transformed his body for his role in the Twilight sequel — it’s rumored that producers gave him several weeks to work on a more chiseled look after considering re-casting his frail twink frame.

He’s the latest Hollywood hunk to transform himself yet again, this time from a beautifully jacked werewolf into an unkempt mound of man for the BBC Three comedy Cuckoo. Apparently he’s moved all his body hair up onto his face.

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50 Cent

Three years before he tried outing P. Diddy on Twitter, rapper/actor and son of lesbian mother 50 Cent dropped a reported 54 pounds to play a football player diagnosed with cancer in the 2011 film All Things Fall Apart. Aside from dropping a shocking amount of weight, 50 also had most of his arm tattoos removed around the same time in an effort to “clean up” his past.

The film didn’t do well, but 50 earned a healthy dose of street cred and respect for his impressive dedication to the role.

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Chris Pratt

America grew to love Chris Pratt as portly goofball Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation, but didn’t really view him as a sex symbol until he uploaded the fateful gym selfie that changed his entire career. The 34-year-old star switched to a healthier looking frame by exercising regularly and dieting for his role in Zero Dark Thirty, but his abs of steel didn’t appear until this year’s Guardians of the Galaxy release.

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Chris Hemsworth

Aussie actor Chris Hemsworth was a slim and toned muscle twink once upon a time, but all that changed when he landed the role of 500-pound Marvel super hero Thor in the current trilogy franchise.

The 30-year-old actor has obviously been working on his body regularly since his 2005 “before” shot above, but he revealed that he put on 20 pounds of pure muscle in 2010 just to play Thor. No word yet on how he’ll transform his body now that Thor is a woman.

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Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks is the godfather of Hollywood weight gain and loss, matched only by his female counterpart Renee Zellweger. Hanks has ballooned and slimmed down several times over the course of his illustrious 36-year career, his most dramatic transformation being a relatively quick drop of a shocking 50 pounds for his role in 2000’s Castaway.

The 58-year-old actor says he’s no longer able to fluctuate his weight on demand due to his diabetes, but his knack for dropping weight fast has become so prolific that fellow actors looking to slim down regularly consult him for tips.

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Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey and washboard abs were almost synonymous until last year, when the 44-year-old Southern gent dropped his stone-cut stomach to play a frail AIDS patient in Dallas Buyer’s Club, a role that won him his first Academy Award. He reportedly lost a quarter of his body weight along with a good chunk of muscle mass by simply starving himself for four months.

jake-gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal has slowly progressed from teenage heartthrob to deluxe daddy over the years, but his most dramatic transformation came before 2010’s Prince of Persia, a film he gained a set of warrior abs for by dieting and exercising almost every minute of the day.

His most recent dramatic transformation comes with his latest film Nightcrawler, for which he lost about 20 pounds, mostly in his face.

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Jared Leto

Before his Oscar-winning performance as a transgender woman in Dallas Buyer’s Club, Jared Leto gained a dangerous 60 pounds in 2007 to play Mark David Chapman in Chapter 27. He later revealed that the sudden weight gain damaged his health permanently and forced him to use a wheelchair during filming — the extra weight put massive strain on his spine and he says he didn’t feel “semi-normal” until a year after he lost the weight again.

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Christian Bale

Tom Hanks passed the body transformation torch off to Batman actor Christian Bale in 2004, when Bale dropped a jaw-dropping 60 pounds for his infamous role in The Machinist. His diet at the time has become somewhat of a Hollywood legend now: no social interaction, and nothing but coffee, water, and an apple a day for four months.

shia-LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf

Child star Shia LaBeouf grew into a flawless muscular man thanks to long hours at the gym and a strict calorie-intake plan. The 28-year-old actor’s most incredible transformation from decent human to complete asshole has been ongoing since 2013, when he was caught plagiarizing famous works and trying to pass them off as original. He’s still incredibly hot, but definitely unhinged.

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