Months of exercise, grueling diets, and a whole lotta pushing Jeeps — here's how Hollywood's actresses prepare for their biggest action roles.
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00:00Months of exercise, grueling diets, and a whole lot of pushing Jeeps — here's how
00:05Hollywood's actresses prepared for their biggest action roles.
00:09Video game icon Lara Croft was first brought to life on the big screen by Angelina Jolie
00:14for 2001's Lara Croft Tomb Raider.
00:16Jolie played Lara two years later in one more movie, Lara Croft Tomb Raider The Cradle of
00:21Life, before the Tomb Raider film franchise was buried for the next 15 years.
00:25When Lara finally returned to the big screen in 2018, the role of the legendary Spelunker
00:30was now played by Alicia Vikander.
00:32Vikander had definitely played action-heavy roles before this, but Tomb Raider was the
00:36first time that she had landed the main lead of a major action-adventure film.
00:40In preparing to play one of the toughest and most athletic video game characters of all
00:45time, Vikander added 12 pounds of muscle to her frame, did mixed martial arts training,
00:49and had to eat up to five meals a day.
00:52She already had a leg up in terms of extreme physical discipline, as Vikander had previously
00:56been a trained ballet dancer.
00:59The Marvel Cinematic Universe finally got its first female-led superhero in 2019, with
01:04Captain Marvel.
01:05One of the most powerful characters in the MCU thus far, much of Captain Marvel's might
01:09comes from her cosmic abilities — but that's not to say she can't scrap when she needs
01:14to.
01:15And Brie Larson put in the work to make sure that Carol Danvers looks like someone you
01:19wouldn't want to mess with.
01:21Speaking about her physical state before filming began, she told Business Insider,
01:25"'Oh my gosh, Marvel doesn't know that I don't even know how to walk up a hill without being
01:29out of breath.'"
01:30But she took the part seriously, telling the outlet that she'd gone far beyond what she'd
01:34ever thought possible for her body.
01:36Larson said she was eventually able to deadlift 200 pounds, hip-thrust 400 pounds, and could
01:41even push a Jeep by herself.
01:44To say that the Star Wars fandom has a complicated relationship with the sequel trilogy would
01:48be a major understatement, but that shouldn't take away from the hard work carried out by
01:52the talented people who made those movies — and that goes especially for Daisy Ridley.
01:56Ridley was still pretty early in her acting career when she joined the cast of Star Wars
02:00The Force Awakens as Rey, an orphan from the mysterious desert planet Jakku.
02:05It was a big change, for sure, but she was fully prepared to start grinding like the
02:08lead of a massive movie franchise.
02:11Ridley's preparations for The Force Awakens included five-hour-a-day workouts for three
02:15months, as well as fight training for the movie's action scenes.
02:19Quentin Tarantino's love of 1970s cinema was bound to lead him to the golden era of martial
02:24arts movies sooner or later.
02:26And when he finally got there with Kill Bill, he went so all-in on the revenge epic that
02:30it had to be split into two parts.
02:32Kill Bill Vol. 2 is technically the only direct sequel Tarantino has made in his entire career.
02:38And with all due respect to the efforts of the cast and crew of those movies, Uma Thurman's
02:42powerhouse performance as the Bride made those films truly shine.
02:46"...you and I have unfinished business."
02:49"...Baby, you ain't kiddin'."
02:54For this part, Thurman had the opportunity to train under legendary filmmaker and fight
02:59choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping.
03:01An icon in his field, Yuen went from working with Jackie Chan back in the 1970s to helping
03:05revitalize martial arts movies around the turn of the century with The Matrix and Crouching
03:10Tiger Hidden Dragon.
03:12After Kill Bill, he put Thurman on 40 hours a week of training for three months to turn
03:16her into someone who could convincingly take on an army of 88 henchmen entirely by herself.
03:21As she told IGN in 2003,
03:23"...it was very empowering to make it out alive from the house of blue leaves with my
03:27joints semi-intact."
03:29It's not only for the movies that actresses transform their bodies.
03:32Alison Brie, who at that point was perhaps best known as nervous bookworm Annie on Community,
03:37proved that she could be so much more when she was cast as a lead in Netflix's Glow,
03:41telling a fictionalized story based on the real-life gorgeous ladies of wrestling promotion.
03:46Brie played Ruth Zoya the Destroyer Wild, a character inspired by Real Glow wrestler
03:50Laurelyn Palmer.
03:51At the time, Brie told ET Online,
03:53"...I have never considered myself an athletic person until I started working on Glow."
03:58But she added the show didn't use stunt doubles, and that she and her fellow actors really
04:02did all the things you saw on the screen.
04:04As a result, before each of the show's three seasons, the cast had to do a month of wrestling
04:08training to get ready.
04:10Brie's personal trainer, Jason Walsh, told Stealth magazine,
04:13"...She's a tiny woman, not an athlete that's been doing this stuff her whole life, so we
04:17trained her like an athlete."
04:18That training paid off, with Brie eventually able to do push-ups with 50 pounds of weight
04:23on her back, as well as pick up the full weight of other people and hold them over her head.
04:28It's not often that a spin-off movie is better than the movie it was spun off from, but few
04:32would disagree that this was the case with Birds of Prey and the fantabulous Emancipation
04:37of One Harley Quinn.
04:38Easily the best part of the disappointing 2016 Suicide Squad movie, Margot Robbie's
04:42take on Harley Quinn deserved much better than that movie.
04:46Luckily, Birds of Prey is still one of the best-reviewed DC Extended Universe movies.
04:50Much of that has to do with Robbie and her captivating take on one of DC's most beloved
04:54characters.
04:55"...I'm telling you, if you want boys to respect you, you have to show them that you're serious.
05:01Blow something up!"
05:02In addition to doing an amazing job embodying Harley's personality, Robbie didn't shy away
05:07from bringing the character's physically tough side to the screen.
05:10She had already worked with ballet dancer and celebrity trainer Andy Hecker to get into
05:14fighting form for Suicide Squad, but she had a lot more screen time in Birds of Prey.
05:18So Robbie really had to double down on the workouts, diets, and overall discipline.
05:23And that's to say nothing of the roller skating.
05:26Given her scene-stealing performances in movies such as The Greatest Showman and Dune, it's
05:30easy to forget that Rebecca Ferguson's big breakout role came by way of the fifth Mission
05:34Impossible film, Rogue Nation.
05:37Playing MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, who switches back and forth between hero and villain seemingly
05:41from one scene to the next, Ferguson held her own among an ever-growing and already
05:45impressive ensemble — not just in terms of character work, but also fights and stunts.
05:50Speaking to Vogue about her first Mission Impossible outing, Ferguson said the training
05:54started immediately.
05:55She explained,
05:56When I first arrived, they drove me straight from the airport to the gym.
05:59For the next month and a half, I trained for six hours, five or six days a week."
06:03The actor said she did most of her own stunts in the movie, and had to do some of the more
06:07dangerous ones over and over again so that they could be shot from as many angles as
06:11possible.
06:12But Ferguson came back for two more Mission Impossible films after Rogue Nation, so it
06:16mustn't have been all bad.
06:18Just because the Deadpool movies are largely comedies doesn't mean there isn't plenty of
06:22action to be found.
06:23It also doesn't mean that the cast of those movies are only training their funny bones
06:26in preparation for their roles.
06:28This is doubly true for those members of the cast that weren't in a head-to-toe costume
06:32or entirely CG.
06:33As luck-powered superhero Domino in Deadpool 2, Zessie Beetz didn't have either to fall
06:38back on, and so she had to look the part with an outfit that left her mostly exposed.
06:43Not only did Beetz have to endure two months of training before filming for the anti-hero
06:47sequel even began, but she also had to squeeze in four hours per day, even when production
06:52got underway.
06:53"...maximum effort."
06:54It was a big change for Beetz to go from not working out at all to having an intense daily
06:58workout routine.
07:00As she told The Hollywood Reporter,
07:01"...it was a huge transition, emotionally and physically, just something I hadn't felt
07:06before."
07:08There was a time when TV productions couldn't hold a candle to Hollywood in terms of action
07:11set pieces, fights, and stunts.
07:13Over the last few decades, however, that line has become thinner, and much of that is due
07:17to HBO's Game of Thrones.
07:19Based on the popular book series by George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones had all of the
07:23budget and spectacle of even the most epic big-screen production, and for the actors
07:28who worked on the show, it felt every bit as physically demanding.
07:31Brienne of Tarth is described in the books as an extremely imposing figure, and compromising
07:36on that wasn't an option for the screen adaptation.
07:38Shortly after the series was announced, a Game of Thrones fan site immediately took
07:42to name-checking which actors should be cast in which roles, and Gwendolyn Christie was
07:46brought up as the perfect person to play Brienne.
07:49That led to someone contacting her agent and bringing the role to her attention, for which
07:53she started training immediately, before the audition was even officially lined up.
07:58Christie already had the height for the part at 6'3", but she had to work hard to give
08:02herself the menacing build to match.
08:04It clearly paid off, though, as it's impossible to imagine anyone else bringing Brienne to
08:08life.
08:10Two years before Captain Marvel hit theaters, the DC Extended Universe had already put a
08:14female superhero front and center for 2017's Wonder Woman.
08:18Before the DCEU film with the highest Rotten Tomatoes score, Wonder Woman seemed to suggest
08:22that the DCEU had what it took to go head-to-head with the MCU.
08:26Of course, that didn't end up panning out.
08:28"...they're everything you say, but so much more."
08:32Gadot said she spent a whopping six months preparing for her first solo outing as Diana
08:37Prince, which included not only exercise and strength training, but also stunt choreography.
08:42Of course, it bears mentioning that, before she became an actor, Gadot had spent two years
08:47as a combat fitness instructor in the Israel Defense Forces.
08:50Clearly, she wasn't starting from zero on her strength and fitness journey for Wonder
08:54Woman.
08:55Nevertheless, she worked and trained hard specifically to play Diana in the character's
08:58multiple film appearances.
09:01It's not always fighting that requires an actor to do intense physical training for
09:04a role.
09:05In the case of 2002's Blue Crush, it was mostly a matter of Kate Bosworth having the physique
09:10needed to play a surfer.
09:12But while actresses getting into bathing suit shape isn't especially unusual for Hollywood,
09:17it's worth highlighting here because of the way it ended up affecting women's roles in
09:20the sport of surfing.
09:21Of course, Bosworth worked very hard on that movie.
09:24She reportedly spent upwards of seven hours a day cross-training, in what she calls the
09:29most physically demanding experience of her life.
09:32But Blue Crush and Bosworth's work in the movie are also said to have represented a
09:36change for women in the surfing culture, inspiring a generation of girls and women to get on
09:40a board and take up the sport themselves, rather than just chill on the beach and watch
09:44the boys ride the waves.
09:47Though Hilary Swank's first major film role already had her performing martial arts as
09:50a next karate kid, she still had to do some serious work to play tragic boxer Maggie Fitzgerald
09:56a decade later in Million Dollar Baby.
09:58In fact, Swank trained so hard that, at one point, she could have died when an untreated
10:02foot blister eventually developed into a potentially fatal staph infection.
10:06If that wasn't proof that Swank was all in on becoming Maggie, her workout routine certainly
10:11was.
10:12For six days a week over three months, Swank did over two hours of boxing training, and
10:15then another one to two hours of weights.
10:17Though she was only asked to add 10 pounds of muscle, Swank nearly doubled that through
10:21not only her workouts, but via a very strict diet regimen.
10:25As for the actual boxing practice, Swank overachieved on that front, too.
10:28Her weight trainer, Grant Roberts, told the Los Angeles Times,
10:31Honestly, I don't know how she was standing up with all that boxing.