Jared Leto For Chapter 27
Jared Leto has played a series of very fit characters in movies such as Requiem For A Dream, Fight Club, and Prefontaine, but in 2007 audiences got to see a Leto that looked very different from what they were accustomed to.
The actor gained a whopping 60 pounds for his role as Mark David Chapman in the film Chapter 27. The effects of his weight gain led to him having to use a wheelchair due to the extra strain put on his body. Leto said it took over a year for his body to get back to feeling semi-normal, and that he isn’t sure if he will ever be as fit as he once was.
His diet? Leto frequently ate microwave pints of ice cream topped with olive oil and soy sauce. He would also frequently eat whole pizzas as one of his many daily meals. Leto said the experience was anything but enjoyable, and that he was force feeding himself to the extent that he perpetually felt as if he needed to throw up.
Despite saying he would never again make a similar transformation for a role, in an interview with Cinema Blend, he said that the work he put in really helped him to embody the person that Lennon’s killer was:
“It was important to make that transformation because I thought his physical representation of himself was an indication of who he was. And it changed everything about who I was – the way I walked , the way I talked, the way I felt about myself, the way people treated me.”
Though the movie wasn’t a critical success, Leto played the role well and really looked the part. He was able to lose the weight in a few months by doing some extreme fasting, and he now looks about as good as he did before filming began.