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Celebrities Who Gained a Large Amount of Weight for Roles: Matthew McConaughey and More

Health & Fitness

Apr 4, 2025 6:40 pm·

By Kaitlyn Monteiro

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They’re not starving for their art! Several celebrities have undergone shocking physical transformations and gained a large amount of weight in the name of an acting role.

Life & Style has before and after photos of the A-listers who put on the pounds for a part.

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Celebrities Who Gained Large Amount of Weight for Roles

Renée Zellweger

Renée Zellweger didn’t just put on a British accent for Bridget Jones’s Diary. She also put on 30 pounds! “For two days it’s bliss, and then you’re full,” Renée, whose performance received an Oscar nom, recalled during an interview with the Daily Mail. “After a week your glucose levels are going crazy. It doesn’t feel good.”

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Channing Tatum

Where’d his six-pack go?! Clocking in at 235 pounds, Channing Tatum debuted his paunchy physique on Instagram. “I won’t be doing any more fat roles,” he declared after bulking up for an upcoming film called Josephine. “It’s too hard on the body and too hard to take off now. But damn, when I look at these pics, it’s just wild what the human body … can do.”

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Matthew McConaughey

Carbe diem! Gorging on cheeseburgers, pizza and beer, Matthew McConaughey added 40 pounds to his frame to embody pot-bellied treasure hunter Kenny Wells in the adventure-thriller Gold. He stopped working out altogether, too. “I wouldn’t even take the stairs to the second floor,” Matt told E! News. “That would be too much exercise.”

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Charlize Theron

Ahead of portraying a depressed mother of three in Tully, Charlize Theron packed on a whopping 50 pounds. “It was fun to go and have breakfast at In-N-Out and have two milkshakes,” she admitted to Allure. Losing the weight, though? Not so fun. It took Charlize a year and a half to get back to her starting size.

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Mark Wahlberg

Consuming 11,000 calories a day to play a boxer-turned-priest in Stu was no easy feat for Mark Wahlberg. “It’s such a hard, physical thing to do,” he dished during an appearance on The Tonight Show. “I would wake up after a meal and have another meal. I was eating every three hours!”

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