Weight loss for roles is nothing new in Hollywood. The industry is built on transformations, some subtle, others extreme, that become cultural touchstones. Take Brad Pitt in Fight Club. His shredded six-pack and lean frame weren’t just part of a role, they became a cultural phenomenon, inspiring countless men to chase the “Brad Pitt workout” in gym locker rooms, Reddit forums, and New Year’s resolutions for a shredded core and single-digit body fat.
But behind the glamour, the toll on body and mind is real. Over the past two decades, male actors have been increasingly candid about the dangers of rapid weight loss. Riverdale’sKJ Apa recently admitted that training for the shirtless role of Archie at just 19 left him struggling with body image. Now, Orlando Bloom is echoing that sentiment.
For his new film The Cut, Bloom shed inches off his waist to play a former boxing champion chasing redemption after a career-ending defeat. On screen, his transformation is impressive. Offscreen, however, he admits the process was exhausting—physically grueling and mentally draining—as he plunged into the obsessive extremes his character confronts.
“Honestly, for me, there was almost no acting required because I committed to the idea that I was going to drop the weight as [a] boxer drops the weight, and then everything started to transform inside me,” he said. “The mental thing was the big surprise, the hangry hungry feelings, the intrusive thoughts, the paranoia, all those things were very real. And I mean, I think that we don’t talk about that stuff much.”
In The Cut, the story mirrors the struggle behind the transformation: a man so consumed by obsession that his reality begins to unravel. For Bloom, the role was a reminder that Hollywood’s iconic body transformations come at a cost, and sometimes the most powerful battles happen behind the camera.
“Fortunately, I had somebody like John to work opposite, who brought this kind of remarkable love to the whole project,” he added. “He sort of inverted things; the lines felt a bit like it was a drill sergeant, but he sort of inverted that and made it sort of like a seductive thing and almost like a love triangle between the three of them. And so there’s so much going on in the film that you can pick through. But I love that about the film, actually.”
