Ten actors who underwent physical transformation for roles

New Delhi: Aamir Khan’s wrestling film Dangal, which releases this week, required him to put on nearly 25kg in six months to play real-life wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat. Khan, known for going the extra mile for his roles, is not the only actor to have undergone physical transformation to get the nuances of a character right. Here are ten others.

1.Randeep Hooda: Director Omung Kumar’s Sarbjit (2016), a biographical take on the Indian national detained in a Pakistani prison for 23 years, saw Hooda lose about 18kg in 28 days. The film that featured Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Singh’s sister, Dalbir Kaur, made Rs27 crore in box office collections.

2.Vikram: Director Shankar’s Tamil romantic thriller I (2015)had the actor don four different looks: a body builder, a beast, a model and a hunchback, necessitating a weight loss of about 25kg that he was forced to maintain for two-and-a-half-years. The film, which won Vikram multiple awards and nominations, netted Rs21 crore in south India on opening day and emerged as the fourth-highest grossing Tamil film at the time.

3.Matthew McConaughey: Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, biographical drama Dallas Buyers Club (2013) tells the story of an AIDS patient in the mid-1980s who smuggles unapproved pharmaceutical drugs and distributes them to others diagnosed with the disease. The film that required McConaughey to drop 47 lbs won him the Academy Award for best actor and earned $55 million in box office collections.

4. Farhan Akhtar: Akhtar played the legendary sprinter Milkha Singh in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s biographical sports drama Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013), first gaining about 8kg to look like a bulky army man and then losing another 10kg to acquire the perfect athletic body. The film that dominated the award circuit that year earned Rs108 crore at the box office.

5.Hrithik Roshan: Roshan piled on kilos to play a quadriplegic magician in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s euthanasia drama Guzaarish (2010). The film managed about Rs29 crore at the box office.

6. Jared Leto: To play Mark David Chapman, the criminal who murdered musician John Lennon in director Jarrett Schaefer’s biographical drama Chapter 27 (2008), Leto put on about 67 lbs. The film earned $187,488 at the box office.

7. Abhishek Bachchan: Bachchan played an ageing business magnate in Mani Ratnam’s Guru (2007) and put on about 11kg. The film that also starred Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, R. Madhavan, Vidya Balan, Arya Babbar and Mithun Chakraborty in lead roles made Rs45 crore in box office collections.

8. Christian Bale: For his title role in director Brad Anderson’s psychological thriller The Machinist (2004), Bale dropped about 60 lbs. The film, which also starred Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Sharian, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Michael Ironside in pivotal roles, made $8 million worldwide.

9. Tom Hanks: Hanks first put on about 55 lbs to look like a middle-aged man in director Robert Zemeckis’s epic survival drama Cast Away (2000) and then dropped them to get the part of an island inhabitant right. The film made $429 million worldwide.

10. Robert De Niro: To play Jack LaMotta, the Italian American middleweight boxer in filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980), a sports drama based on LaMotta’s memoir, De Niro put on about 60 lbs. The film that made $23 million at the domestic box office has achieved cult status over the years.

All figures have been sourced from movie websites Box Office Mojo, Box Office India and Bollywood Hungama.