Most recently, Mark Wahlberg endured an 11,000 calorie ordeal for a film. It was still about gaining weight for the authentic portrayal of Stu. But this wasn’t the first time the action star, lingerie model and rapper from Boston has undergone a transformation we’d associate with Christian Bale. Already for The Gambler he beat his body through a diet. Anything for acting. That scared even Michael Bay.
Food lover Mark Wahlberg struggled through a diet for The Gambler
In the crime film The Gambler Mark Wahlberg plays a literature professor, who destroys himself with his gambling addiction. A hardened body of an action star probably doesn’t go with it. That’s why Wahlberg lost around 30 kilograms for the film.
Check out the trailer for The Gambler starring Mark Wahlberg:
The Gambler – Trailer (German) HD
In a 2014 interview with E!News, he explained:
I felt terrible because I like food. I was on a liquid diet for six weeks. I have eight ounces of almond milk in the morning [ca. 240 ml, Anm.d.Red.] had eight ounces of almond milk in the afternoon and eight ounces at night and that was it. Then I had to train for two to three hours a day in addition to 12-hour days of shooting. It wasn’t fun. Wahlberg showed up 70 pounds lighter at Transformers and Michael Bay wasn’t thrilled
Anyone who knows Mark Wahlberg’s filmography by heart (who doesn’t?) will notice one thing: in 2014, when The Gambler hit theaters, there was also a little movie called Transformers 4: Era of Extinction. Part of the sci-fi blockbuster was filmed before The Gambler, with one exception: the post-shoots. Cade Yeager actor Mark Wahlberg appeared around 30 kilos lighter than at the beginning of the shoot. Director Michael Bay was shocked. As Wahlberg recounted:
The person who got most excited was Michael Bay because we weren’t done with Transformers. We still had to do reshoots. So I had to [Michael Bays] go home […]. He thought I was dying. He was like, ‘Boy, you look awful’.
As a result, Wahlberg gained another 40 pounds, which PageSix said wasn’t enough for the director. Still, the perfectionist Bay debated how the camera could capture a muscular Wahlberg where none was.
So The Gambler, who is hardly remembered today, gave the world at least three things:
*. . .