How Christian Bale Lost Huge Weight For 'The Fighter'

It takes a lot of training to be a boxer, and sometimes, even more to train one. Christian Bale, no stranger to epic weight loss, shed major pounds again for his role in the upcoming film, 'The Fighter.'

Speaking to Latino Review, Bale said that to play the gaunt trainer Dicky Eklund, he, "was just running like crazy. I could just run for hours on end and I felt really healthy." But did he get a little extra boost? "Oh I do a lot of coke whenever I lose weight," he joked, clarifying, "I'm not sure if it's so funny for this movie, to say that."

While Bale slimmed down, his co-stars had to bulk up. Leading man Mark Wahlberg, who plays boxer "Irish" Mickey Ward, did a lot of boxing - for quite a long time.

"The movie was a go then it fell apart and I just continued to train" he said. "So after four and a half, well, three and a half years, I felt confident enough to go in there and be believable as a boxer who could possibly win the welterweight title."

Though he still has the boxing ring he trained with in his home, it isn't getting much use.

"As far as the regimen, my new regimen consists of a bottle of red wine and a lot of food," Wahlberg told the site. "And I'm enjoying myself, but my wife is like, you know, 'You - you're starting to look really bad.'"

And as for his onscreen wife, played by Amy Adams? She was ready to rumble.

"I looked like a girl who couldn't punch, which made me want to punch him," she said of director, David O. Russell. "So I actually took just a couple boxing lessons, and that was fun, with Mark's trainer, who was fantastic. And then we just did some fight choreography. That was my biggest concern. I didn't want to hurt the girl that I was fighting."

For more on the making of the film, head over to LatinoReview.com.

Comments

[murphysgirl]

12:22 AM on 12/10/2010

Bale's body was perfection in American Psycho.

[Lisse Kono]

12:01 PM on 12/09/2010

Chirstian bale shoudl stop doing this kind of extreme weight lose.... it killed Raul Julia!! and it can kill him too...

[Jerome Morrow]

06:21 PM on 01/04/2011

I thought Raul Julia died of cancer...

[Forester]

06:56 PM on 12/08/2010

Bale + Hertzog = "Rescue Dawn"

Two obsessive geniuses created a remarkable biopic together. I highly recommend it.

It is a little uncomfortable watching Bale give so much of himself to his work, but he is always "all in" with his acting and we are lucky to experience it. He is one of those child actors who came back very strong.

[bobbiecat]

01:17 PM on 12/08/2010

I saw The Fighter and it is, by far, the best movie of the year. You don't have like boxing to enjoy this movie. Dicky Eklund, as portrayed by Christain Bale, is heartbreaking. Bale's preformance is so realistc that you really begin to care about the character and you can relate to him. You know a 'Dicky Eklund' in your own life and know that struggle of wanting to see that person well again, as Micky does. It's such a good movie. Go see it.

[Susan Moss]

10:33 AM on 12/08/2010

I remember watching that old show on HBO: America Undercover: Life on Crack Street. It featured the guy who he's playing. It was a disturbing show but really worth checking out before watching this movie. One thing is for sure, the real Dickie Eklund is not nearly as hot as Christian Bale (even after losing weight)

[bwaldronxoxo]

10:25 AM on 12/08/2010

Great actor! But story is irrelevant....."How Hollywood Actor Continues to Starve himself for movies people never see"
http://www.britneywaldron.com

[GraniteSkyline]

08:45 AM on 12/08/2010

Did he lose the huge chip on his shoulder? That would be news!

[noladebby]

03:06 AM on 12/08/2010

I like Christian Bale healthy and fine. He looks gross in that picture.

[RobertFromMN]

04:36 AM on 12/08/2010

He lost a shocking amount of weight for a film called "The Machinist":
http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/balejuice1.jpg
Yikes.

[GraphicMatt]

10:50 AM on 12/08/2010

That was a great movie and he was eerily thin in it.

[MaybeMilo]

02:51 PM on 12/08/2010

Yeah - that movie freaked me out a bit - for the first few minutes of him on-screen shirtless, I was trying to figure out how they performed the emaciated "special effects."

[Wintersoldier7020]

02:13 AM on 12/08/2010

Bale is a great actor and a handsome man that ruins his body for the craft ...ugh, I'm hoping he bounces back because it would be a waste ...like a Harvard grad mathematician becoming a plumber.

[GraphicMatt]

10:51 AM on 12/08/2010

He lost a sick amount of weight for the movie "The Machinist" then bounced right back for the Batman movie.

[Wintersoldier7020]

06:05 PM on 12/08/2010

As you get older it becomes harder to do.

[Joel Redman]

05:33 PM on 12/08/2010

Sort of the opposite of Liz Taylor after Virginia Woolf.

[Shaun Hensley]

01:53 AM on 12/08/2010

Bale has done some great work.

[chaapai]

01:48 AM on 12/08/2010

i think it was the "screaming at low level movie set employee" diet.

[NaBa]

02:34 AM on 12/08/2010

oh puhhhhlease, let it go already.

[SteveSFM]

05:14 AM on 12/08/2010

1) The DP is hardly "low level".

2) He apologized publicly and privately, and made fun of his own behavior.

So, yeah. Double fail.

[skantea]

01:23 AM on 12/08/2010

"High on Crack Street" The gritty documentary that inspired this film.
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=kZBdlyG9-­k4”

[skantea]

11:05 PM on 12/07/2010

Dicky Eklund story is famous because of his involvement in the hbo documentary 'High on Crack Street.' I'm sure it will be a decent film, but you can't beat the gritty reality of that documentary.
You can see on youtube in 6 ten minute clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBdlyG9-k4

[Eric8869]

10:55 PM on 12/07/2010

He lost so much weight for The Machinist - he literally looked disgusting. I hope he doesn't look as bad in this movie. Regardless he is a good actor and I can't wait to see him in this movie.

[skantea]

11:09 PM on 12/07/2010

In the documentary that followed Eklund while he was high on crack, Eklund wasn't all that skinny. I think the directors just made the decision for Bale to lose weight was more about the visual than the reality.

[Mort]

01:11 AM on 12/08/2010

He looked like a refugee from Auschwitz. 6 weeks later he was buffed up and ready to film Batman.I don't know if it's smart, but sure shows dedication to his craft.

[tangelan]

10:40 PM on 12/07/2010

I wish he would move on to theater or something. Movies are taking too great a toll on him.