Topics: Film and TV, Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg has opened up about how he gained 30 pounds for upcoming film Father Stu.
The 50-year-old plays the role of Stuart Long in the drama; a former amateur boxer suffering from a muscle disease called inclusion body myositis, who goes to Los Angeles in a bid to find fame, only to end up as a supermarket clerk.
Long soon dedicates himself to weekly church visits after falling for a Sunday school teacher; however, the church ends up meaning more to him than he first anticipated.
In order to as accurately as possible represent Long's rare muscular generative disease and subsequent physical condition, Wahlberg was required to put on 30 pounds for the biopic, which was written and directed by Rosalind Ross.
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The actor has since opened up about how he achieved the weight gain.
The actor revealed the specific diet he was put on in order to make him gain weight as quickly as possible, with just 'six weeks to put on about 30 pounds'.
"I started with 7,000 calories for the first two weeks and then 11,000 calories for the final four weeks.
"I tried to do it in a healthy way. It was a dozen eggs and a dozen pieces of bacon, two baked potatoes, a Porterhouse steak, two bowls of white rice, and a glass of olive oil. The first two weeks were high proteins. The second two weeks were a lot of carbs. The last two weeks starches, and then sodium, just to kind of get as bloated as possible. So not a lot of fun," he told E!.
In order to try and feel hungry, Wahlberg kept up his morning workout routine and tried 'to lift as heavy as possible'.
Wahlberg said it took 'a toll' on him to go from 'being a guy who was in fighting shape to a guy who was wheelchair-bound from a rare muscular degenerative disease'.
He told Entertainment Weekly: "I was just turning 50 by the time we finished the movie, and I was eating 11,000 calories a day.
"That drastic weight gain really took a toll on me over the course of the last seven, eight months. Even when you're full, I would wake up after a meal and have another meal. I was eating every three hours. It was not fun."
The actor explained how he 'like[s] having to prepare physically as well as mentally' for a role, preparing months in advance and becoming a 'little obsessive about it'.
Despite the difficult training and transformation, Wahlberg said he was 'obviously thrilled with the results'.
He resolved: "Making it a kind of down and dirty, gritty, independent way was much better, because... that's who these people are."
Father Stu is set to hit cinemas in the US on 13 April and in the UK on 13 May
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