When it comes to actors losing or gaining a probably unhealthy amount of weight for a role, we tend to think of Robert De Niro in Raging Bull or Christian Bale in about a third of his movies. (The latter recently won a mess of awards for bulking up to play Dick Cheney in Vice, though he tended to thank not his personal trainer but Satan.) Now we can add to the list…Simon Pegg?
The English actor, writer, and comedy god recently took to Twitter to share a rather frightening photo of himself after spending half a year losing weight and gaining muscle for the in-the-works film Inheritance. Pegg’s evidently very competent personal trainer shared the photo first, with the caption, “Simon Pegg 6 month body transformation for ‘Inheritance’ Movie. The brief for this role was lean, VERY lean. It required a specific body shape & look.”
Pegg’s official account retweeted it, adding the words “And occasional mild grumpiness…”
Also occasional mild grumpiness…😝💪🏻 https://t.co/d1V9OedEo6
— Pegg News (@simonpegg) March 1, 2019
For the record, Pegg has performed some very mild, not quite Bale-ian weight fluctuations before. For the 2007 comedy Run Fatboy Run, he, well, didn’t become exactly fat but he did get a little doughy. Compare/contrast that with Hot Fuzz, made the same year and with his frequent buds/collaborators Nick Frost and Edgar Wright, in which he rocked a taut, athletic build.
But this is more extreme. Indeed, the star of Shaun of the Dead and Spaced is now officially more ripped than his Mission: Impossible colleague Tom Cruise. Inheritance concerns the fallout after a wealthy and powerful patriarch dies. Pegg will be joined by Lily Collins, Chace Crawford, and Connie Nielsen. Let’s hope it was worth getting into the best shape of Pegg’s entire life.
(Via Deadline)
