For the upcoming boxing drama Southpaw starring Jake Gyllenhaal from director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), star Jake Gyllenhaal joined the hallowed halls of movie stars that have gotten super in-shape for a role. The 34-year-old actor's dramatic weight fluctuations — from buff for the likes of Prince Of Persia and Jarhead to emaciated for last year's Nightcrawler and now, back again — put him in the company of such dedicated method actors as Christian Bale and Jared Leto. In Southpaw, written by Sons Of Anarchy's Kurt Sutter, Gyllenhaal plays fictional boxer Billy Hope — and Gyllenhaal looks every bit the part.
Now, Entertainment Weekly's Kevin P. Sullivan has peeled back the layers of secrecy surrounding Gyllenhaal's dramatic physical transformation and has revealed the shocking truth of the actor's workout regimen. According to Sullivan:
Despite what the stills from Southpaw might suggest, all Gyllenhaal did to become Billy Hope was… box.
Wait, what?
No chopping wood in the Russian wilderness, or wrestling bears: He just boxed. A lot.
In the actor's own words, "I just remember two-a-days for five months, and learning as best I could the sport of boxing and have it envelope me and going to many fights—being in that world and just training, training, training."
That's it!? Chopping wood and wrestling bears aren't the only images of Gyllenhaal's workout plan that are now ruined forever thanks to that anticlimactic revelation. With this workout regimen revealed, all the images I had of Gyllenhaal doing the following in preparation for Southpaw are forever ruined:
Climbing Mountains While Shirtless
Probably not super safe, but it looks badass, right?
Wrestling With Bane (Probably Shirtless)
But, like, a friendly Bane. Not one that breaks your back and then tells you you have his permission to die. #rude
Deadlifting Monster Truck Tires
That's Hafthór Júlíus Björnsson aka Game Of Thrones ' Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane. I bet Jake Gyllenhaal could show him a thing or two.
Chainsawing Sharks
But only on the rainy days.
The Gaston Diet
"When I was a lad I ate four dozen eggs every morning to help me get large. And now that I've grown I eat five dozen eggs, so I'm roughly the size of a barge."
The Super Soldier Serum
Turning scrawny men into Greek gods since 1942.
Witchcraft
If science didn't turn Jake Gyllenhaal into a beast, then magic definitely did. Either he sucked the souls out of some children or he made a deal with the devil. Not sure which.
Working Out With Chris Pratt
Can I just keep my image of these two hitting the gym together? Pretty please?
Shake Weight
Shake it off, Jake. Shake it off.
Images: The Weinstein Company; climbinggifs.com; Giphy.com (2); AFP/Getty Images; pixable, disneydriven, truthis1, iaminfiniteus, danthatscool/tumblr
