The kid from Jerry Maguire is sporting a shockingly ripped bod as he promotes his new film. From Lautner to Bale, see photos of more child stars who have beefed up over the years.
Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds? If so, chances are you learned that fun fact from Jonathan Lipnicki, the adorable 6-year-old who stole the show from Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger in Jerry Maguire. After Maguire, Lipnicki was spotted here and there in the Stewart Little franchise and Like Mike, but for the most part, he’s remained relatively off the scene. Until now, that is. Lipnicki was told that in the upcoming For the Love of Money he’d be featured shirtless in a scene and, perhaps as an effort to make his big-screen comeback more successful than his Jerry Maguire costar’s, the actor hit the gym. Though the shirtless scene ended up being cut, a habit had already been formed. In an interview with Us Weekly, the self-described “gym rat” says, “I work free-weights and do circuit training with my trainer four to five times a week. I also train in Brazilian jujitsu several times a week.” Whatever he’s doing I guess it’s working. At first (and second) glance, it’s hard to believe this body belongs to the same little kid who broke our hearts in the ’90s.
Everett Collection; Ryan Caliendo / Pacific Coast News
Jerry O’Connell has come a long way since his days as the adorably chubby star of Stand By Me. After the coming-of-age film wrapped, the young O’Connell moved back in with his parents and eventually attended New York University. After college, O’Connell landed a role on the TV show Sliders and moved to Hollywood—watching his body puff up as he became a fixture in the party scene. It wasn’t until he had to play a football player in Jerry Maguire that O’Connell first got serious about getting into shape. But it was working with a trainer for his role in Jerry Bruckheimer’s Kangaroo Jack that taught the actor how to keep his body low in fat and high in muscle. “I found that by just cutting out booze, salt, and dressings, the fat just drips off you, he told Men’s Fitness magazine in 2006. These days, O’Connell can be spotted jogging with his dog or sporting a Speedo on the set of Piranha 3-D, his body now the picture of health.
Everett Collection; Pacific Coast News
Perhaps the most unrecognizable on this list of now-buff child stars is Anthony Michael Hall. It’s hard to believe that this is the same kid who persuaded Molly Ringwald to give him her underwear in Sixteen Candles and brought the lovable cast of misfits together at the end of The Breakfast Club. Hall hit somewhat of a downward spiral after outgrowing his place as a mainstay in John Hughes movies, drinking excessively and getting into fights in the ’90s. He pulled himself together for the USA Network TV show The Dead Zone in 2002 and even grabbed a small part in The Dark Knight, the highest-grossing film of 2008. Most recently, however, Hall made the news not for his acting but for disturbing the peace, which got him arrested at his apartment in Los Angeles.
Everett Collection; Getty Images
When Nick Carter was at the height of his Backstreet Boys fame, his 13-year-old brother, Aaron Carter, embarked on a solo career with the release of his 1998 self-titled debut. Aaron was Nick’s Mini Me, from his music style to his pretty-boy-meets-bad-boy image. By the time he released Aaron’s Party (Come Get It) in 2000, he had more screaming tween fans than his older brother. Then came 2001’s Oh Aaron and a slew of successful tours with both the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Naturally, the fame went to his head a bit. In an appearance on The Big Idea With Johnny Deutsch in 2005, Carter boasted, “I started dating Hilary [Duff] on my 13th birthday … I was dating her for like a year and a half, and then I just got a little bored so I went and started getting to know Lindsay [Lohan], dating Lindsay.” Despite his big ego, he was still a relatively puny little thing. After a long dry spell in his career, Carter’s manager Johnny Wright announced last January that he was checking into rehab, though he didn’t elaborate on what the 23-year-old was seeking treatment for aside from “emotional and spiritual issues.” Prior to checking into rehab, Carter had been “working on a new album, perfecting his life show and his physical body,” according to Wright. From the looks of his physical body now, rehab turned Carter into a lean, mean, fighting machine. His career has also taken a new turn: he just joined the cast of Off-Broadway’s longest running show, The Fantasticks.
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Danny Bonaduce got his start playing Danny Partridge on 1970s sitcom The Partridge Family. Now he is probably just as famous for appearances on reality shows and strange antics, including showing up to events topless and participating in boxing and wrestling matches. His changing physique can be partially attributed to steroids, which he began taking during the filming of his reality show Breaking Bonaduce. Bonaduce has praised steroid use in the past, saying that steroids should be mandatory in wrestling and a lack of steroids is harmful to the business.
Before he became The Twilight Saga's resident werewolf and teen heartthrob with a ripped body, Taylor Lautner was known for his starring role in the 2005 kids action film The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D. Back then, his skinny frame looked awfully cute in Sharkboy’s suit (complete with a fin on the back), and his face still had traces of baby fat. That all changed after his voice dropped and he started prepping for his role in the Twilight films. For his debut in New Moon, Lautner worked out five days a week and gained 30 pounds of muscle in one year. “My character continues to grow, so I’d like to pack on at least a few more lean pounds,” he told Men’s Health in 2009. Two years later, his washboard abs might be his biggest claim to fame (they’ve even caught Mark Wahlberg’s eye).
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Remember Christian Bale as the fresh-faced star of Newsies, Disney’s 1992 musical? Or as the boyishly handsome Laurie who tries to win over Winona Ryder in 1994’s Little Women? He’s certainly changed over the years, making his first major transformation in 2000’s American Psycho, in which he plays a sociopathic serial killer. When he isn’t chopping Jared Leto to pieces to the tune of Phil Collins’s “Sussudio” or chasing down a woman with a chainsaw, he routinely uses facial masks to maintain a perfect complexion and delights in seeing his flexed muscles in the mirror (and on video). “I bulked up purely for that part,” Bale said in an interview with IGN movies. After losing a whopping 60 pounds to play the emaciated lead in The Machinist, Bale beefed up even more for 2005’s Batman Begins. “I couldn't do one push-up the first day,” he said. “All of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that.” He was practically busting out of his bat suit in The Dark Knight, and in preparation for next year’s The Dark Knight Rises, Bale is currently maintaining “the kind of diet and exercise plan that is more in line with an Olympic athlete than an actor,” a source told Showbiz Spy.
