10 Actors who have gained or lost weight for film roles

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth posted this selfie of himself (right) after embarking on an intense 500-calories-a-day regime for his role in the movie Heart of the Sea.see more pictures after the cut...

Liam Neeson recently dropped around 20lbs for his role in Martin Scorsese's Silence.

George Clooney used a pasta-heavy diet to gain 35 lbs for his part in the 2004 film Syriana 

 Rapper 50 Cent went through a dramatic weight loss to play an American football player diagnosed with cancer in Things Fall Apart, a movie he also wrote. "I lost 54 pounds for it," 50 said of his role, inspired by a friend of his who died of cancer. "I was starving."
              

For the 1999 movie Boys Don't Cry, a re-telling of the tragic real-life story of transgendered man and murder victim Brandon Teena, Hilary Swank reduced her body fat to 7% and lived as a man for nearly a month, going as far as to bind her chest with elastic bandages 

Charlize Theron received critical acclaim for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Silver Bear and the Academy Award for Best Actress 

Matthew Fox put himself through an intense workout regime and lost 44 pounds to portray a serial killer in the 2012 thriller Alex Cross

Tom Hanks had to lose 50 pounds to play the lead role in the 2000 film Cast Away

Matthew McConaughey survived on just Diet Coke, egg whites and a piece of chicken a day to play AIDS patient Ron Woodroof in the 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club. The normally beefy actor lost 3 stone (21 pounds) to slim down to 9.5 stone.

Natalie Portman lost 20 pounds to play a ballerina in Black Swan (2010), and trained for five hours a day, seven days a week for the role. She won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in the film, and is pictured on the right at the 2011 Academy Awards, having regained all the lost weight (plus a little extra due to the fact that she was pregnant at the time).