Vincent D’Onofrio For Full Metal Jacket
Considered by many to be one of the greatest war films of all time, Full Metal Jacket‘s success was greatly helped by Vincent D’Onofrio and his dramatic weight gain to play Pvt. Leonard Lawrence. D’Onofrio piled on 70 pounds in 7 months for the role sticking to a simple diet of the greasiest foods possible. His efforts put him all the way up to 285, which meant he broke Robert De Niro’s weight gain record by 10 pounds.
The role was actually originally written as a skinny ignorant redneck, but director Stanley Kubrick decided that the character would have more of an impact if he was big and clumsy. The weight took a definite toll on D’Onofrio, even causing him to require surgery on his knee for damage done during one of the boot-camp scenes. In an interview one year after filming, D’Onofrio talked about the way the experience changed him.
“It changed my life… Women didn’t look at me; most of the time I was looking at their backs as they were running away. People used to say things to me twice, because they thought I was stupid… It makes you realize all those typical things about beauty being deeper than what you would think.”
It took him 9 long months and a lot of training to get back near his original weight, which he did for his role in Adventures In Babysitting. Boththe movies were released in the same year, providing audiences with a full spectrum of D’Onofrio.
So there you have it, ten more actors who have gone through remarkable transformations. If you’d like to read about even more actors who lost/gained weight to play their roles, check out Beefing Up Part 1: Ten Actors Who Underwent Remarkable Physical Transformations For Their Roles.