After playing Wolverine for 24 years, Hugh Jackman knows a thing or two about getting into superhero shape and one of the most important real-life components of getting swole as an adamantium-claw-wielding X-Men mainstay isn’t actually a regenerative healing factor but a strict diet plan.
Jackman sat down on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon recently and divulged some of the details of this rigid diet plan.
“You eat like steamed rocks or something. What do you have?,” The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon joked with Jackman.
“Yeah, sometimes I fry the rocks,” Jackman replied.
In all seriousness, Jackman said that to achieve the ripped, muscular look he got in Deadpool & Wolverine, he had to increase his caloric intake by a lot — like 6,000 calories a lot.
“It’s 6,000 calories, and it’s not the calories you necessarily want. Like, half a pizza is 6,000 calories. But no, this is chicken, and it’s tilapia and beans. Tilapia and beans. I don’t know why tilapia. It must be some fish that is lean, and green beans,” Jackman explained.
Because of last year’s ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike and the Marvel VFX artists’ unionization however, Jackman had to follow his stringent diet for a much longer time period that he initially anticipated.
“There’s one particular scene where I really wanted to focus on how I looked. And [director Shawn Levy] said, ‘Where do you want to do that scene?’ And I said, ‘Let’s just put it to the end.’ And then the strike came, and I was like, ‘Oh, why did I say that?’”
Jackman also noted that all that surplus eating and drinking in the pursuit of superheroic gains also makes even simple requirements like going to the bathroom an effort, especially when wearing Wolverine’s iconic, yellow and blue X-Man suit.
“It look so good, it feels so good. Except when you’re urinating it does not feel good. It’s like a labyrinth getting there,” Jackman explained.
Despite the herculean labors Jackman has to endure to get into Wolverine shape, the 55-year-old actor describes the entire process as “worth it” in the end. After seeing Jackman suit up in Deadpool & Wolverine and loving every minute of the movie, we have to agree with him.
What do you think of how Hugh Jackman describes strict diet plan he had to follow to get in shape for ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’? Do you think you’d be able to eat 6,000 calories a day to get into Wolverine shape? Let us know in the comments.
