Please Go To The Gym

An article popped up this morning about Jonathan Majors hitting the gym and packing on 10 pounds of muscle to play Kang the Conqueror in the up-and-coming new Ant-Man movie.

According to Men’s Health magazine, Majors put on the muscle after training with a strength-and-conditioning coach Jamie Sawyer, who said:

“He is the warrior version of Kang. So there was a focus on what that warrior would look like who’s been around through the ages and has developed every type of combat skill. It was about making him look like an imposing figure.”

Majors said that when he took on the role, he knew that getting to the gym would be part of the process:

“I look at Kang and I go, ‘Okay, cool. It’s a certain IP where people expect this at a bare minimum’. No one should put themselves or their families in a place where they’re hurting, but your own discomfort is not necessarily a bad thing. That’s growth. It’s not comfortable, but you’re here to save the world, aren’t you? Or take over the world.“

Wise words from Majors. It’s all about the character and you have to put yourself out for certain roles. In the rest of the MCU, we see that Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Hugh Jackman, and Chris Hemsworth have all hit the gym and got themselves buff for the roles they played.

From Bud to Buff
From Bud to Buff

Christian Bale is another actor who has completely and utterly transformed his body, from The Machinist to Batman, to Vice.

WHat about the other side of the coin? Recently, Bryce Dallas Howard was asked to lose a little weight for her roles in the Jurassic World movies. Her character, Claire Dearing, has had to do a lot of running around and physical activity in the movies.

Being fit and healthy for the role would have been a bonus and would have helped the character out. However, she has recently “opened up” about talked about the “devastating ways” she was treated by others.

"You want me to do what?"
“You want me to do what?”

The producers of the Jurassic World movies had asked her to get to the gym and lose a little weight for the role. The conversation came up again for the third movie, but director Colin Trevorrow stepped into “silence the ridiculous demands”.  She said:

“How do I say this? [I’ve] been asked to not use my natural body in cinema. And on the third movie, it was actually because there were so many women cast, it was something that Colin felt very strongly about in terms of protecting me… because the conversation came up again, ‘We need to ask Bryce to lose weight.’

 [Colin] was like, ‘There are lots of different kinds of women on this planet, and there are lots of different kinds of women in our film,’ I got to do so many stunts that wouldn’t have been possible if I had been dieting.”

It also turns out that the producers had asked con-star DeWanda Wise to put on some muscles as well, she said:

“It’s always something. There was a lot of resistance to Kayla having muscle, to what it means to be a woman, look like a woman. It’s just every side, it’s relentless and impossible.”

Yes, it’s impossible to look like a woman, just ask Caitlyn Jenner.

Doesn’t this whole thing feel a bit hypocritical and two-faced? In Hollywood it is acceptable for a man to have to hit the gym for a role, months before production? Yet asking a woman to lose a little weight for her role is disgusting? Is this Hollywood double standards at play?

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