By Brooke Brown
While most of us are fighting the tendency to slowly add a pound or two each year, actors in pursuit of a great performance have willfully undergone far more extreme physical changes. In pursuit of creating a 'character,' actors have gained and lost some drastic numbers—like Christian Bale’s frightening 60-pound weight loss for the 2004 film, The Machinist, Robert De Niro’s legendary 60-pound weight gain to play boxer Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, and Matt Damon's (pictured) recent 30-pound weight gain for The Informant.
Here is a look at some of the more dramatic cases of body transformations for art’s sake.
