It must be even nicer to be Hugh Jackman these days, now that his director has ordered him to stuff himself with 6,000 calories a day.
Jackman, who is prepping to reprise his role in the next installment of the ":Wolverine" franchise, was told by Darren Aronofsky to pack the pounds onto his chiseled frame until he looks more like Mike Tyson.
"Right now, I'm at 210 [pounds]," Jackman told the LA Times. "I was at 190 ... and [Aronofsky] said with the last one, 'Hey you looked great, but you're so tall that in those long shots you looked kind of like Clint Eastwood, and that's not Wolverine.' "
Aronofsky went the other way with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in getting them ready for "Black Swan." They each were instructed to shed 20 pounds for their roles.
"[Aronofsky] said that Wolverine, in the comics, is powerful, stocky, you know, he's short and thick. So he said, 'I want you to go there, get bigger,' " Jackman said, adding his new diet isn't easy. "It's 6,000 calories a day, it's rough."
The 6-foot-2 actor is drawing on Mike Tyson in his prime for his new shape.
"Sometimes [Tyson] was a full foot shorter than his opponents and bent over [with this] massive build ... There's real power," he said, joking that this role may not be best for his health. "If I have a massive heart attack first, well, you tell everyone what I was going for.
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Selected Reading: PopEater, Los Angeles Times, IMDb.