Plague of Strength

In Hollywood there are basically a few main forms in which an actor can come, most of which are characterized as archetypes in the old-school TV show the A-Team- you had Face, the smarmy good-looking charmer with all of the class of an Israeli lotion salesman at a mall kiosk; Hannibal, the irascible, cutthroat, older-and-wiser tactician; BA Baracus, the eternally scowling yet hilariously kind-hearted muscle; and Murdock, the comedian / mental patient and madcap pilot. That aside, breaking down Hollywood roles is actually far less complex than that- there are the sex symbols and the character actors, and its fairly rare that the two intersect, though guys like Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are notable exceptions. The reasoning behind the lack of crossover is pretty simple, and was summed up nicely by the late, fucking hilarious Brian Dennehy when speaking to Ratatoullie costar Patton Oswalt:

“And then Brian Dennehy comes up behind me like an archangel, puts his hand on my shoulder and goes, ‘Character actors. Who gives a fuck if we’re fat!’ and starts grabbing burgers.”

But then you’ve got guys like Christian Bale, who is widely considered to be an actor in spite of his nearly complete lack of facial expressions and tonal inflections- he had produced some seriously impressive body transformations, as have Ryan Reynolds, Henry Cavill, and others. It’s in this weird little subset of occasionally jacked actors in which the inimitable Robert DeNiro lives. Although we usually think of him bedecked in some mob boss’s sharkskin suit, he’s had a number of movies in which he was pretty fucking muscular, and he usually doesn’t get much mention for having done so, likely because he was in his best shape at the age of almost 50… thirty fucking years ago.

A movie made thirty years ago is a lot like a car made thirty years ago- it might have been rad in its day, but it’s pretty fucking mediocre by today’s lofty standards. In 1991, the Ferrarri Testarossa was the car every middle school kid drooled over, and that thing somehow only managed 390 horsepower out of a twelve cylinder engine. It cost $91k, which is roughly double that in 2020 dollars, yet a 2020 VW GTI has a nearly identical 0-60 time for a third of the original, unadjusted price, and is just a far better car in general.

Interestingly, movie physiques are in large part pretty similar- there are a lot more actors getting randomly muscular for films (like Chris Pratt), and our standards for muscularity have gotten to be nigh on fucking insane. Nevertheless, DeNiro’s physique has at times been one of the better builds in Hollywood, and he deserves more than passive credit for being that guy for over forty years, in spite of the fact that unlike Stallone and Schwarzenegger, his body was never his earner.

Robert DeNiro was born in the year we nuked Japan into the Stone Age and was 33 before he truly struck gold with his role in Taxi Driver. Frankly, that film bored the tits off me and seems to be a favorite of people who love conspiracy theories and thinking they’re far more intelligent than they actually are. DeNiro was at that point around 175 pounds when he was just walking around, but he dropped thirty pounds to prep for the role of Travis Bickle, in addition to taking a bunch of firearms training (which I think was somewhat uncommon at that point as well).

When Taxi Driver was released, DeNiro was 33. By the time Raging Bull hit theaters, Deniro was four years older, but he bulked up training with the boxer whom he was portraying, Jake Lamotta, and got into seriously respectable boxing weight. Lamotta boxed at 160 pounds, so the goal wasn’t for DeNiro to get huge- it was for him to be a very believable brawler boxer. That project was basically intended to be DeNiro’s life’s work, and he sought out Martin Scorcese to direct it before he contacted the protagonist of the film to train him.

“De Niro said in an interview in TIME in 2013 that he trained with LaMotta for almost a year, doing one-on-one sparring sessions, and going through at least “1,000 rounds” together in New York City. De Niro added more than 20lbs of muscle to his frame, and had the physique of an actual boxer while filming the movie, according to a deep-dive into the making of the movie from Vanity Fair. De Niro was so dedicated to becoming a convincing brawler, he competed in three organized bouts, winning two. LaMotta was so impressed with De Niro’s dedication, he claimed the actor could have fought professionally if he wished (Ambrosino).

If the last bit seems outlandish, don’t let your lack of knowledge about Hollywood get the best of you- plenty of leading men at the time boxed in small professional matches under pseudonyms- it was just as much a part of being an action star in Hollywood as visiting the Richfield Gas Station to jump into an orgy was at that time. Guys like Jack Palance (the old guy in that shitty Billy Crystal cowboy movie), as well as a badass cowboy in a shitload of older films boxed under the name Jack Brazzo, Tony Danza, Kris Kristofferson (Whistler from the Blade movies), Danny Trejo, and Bob Hope, among plenty of others, threw their hats in the ring before and during their careers, as most actors of the time used boxing to stay in shape, rather than lifting weights.

To that point, DeNiro rarely seems to have used weights in his vie role preparation. Instead, he used a lot of old school calisthenics and boxing training. LaMotta would jog every morning in heavy boots, immediately followed by pushups, situps, and likely rope climbing. Thereafter he would work the heavy bag for hours, which was an old-school conditioning method held over from the late 18th century, at least. He likely trained DeNiro precisely the same way, as he was not a man who had any interest in trying new things- Lamotta seems to have been a giant pain in the fucking ass every waking moment of his life.

Though he was between 160 and 170 pounds during the boxing portion of Raging Bull, he went on a three-month vacation in Europe and ate everything under the fucking sun so he could return to finish filming sixty pounds of fat heavier, playing Lamotta in his later years. That worked out, as DeNiro wasn’t going to play another physical role for another decade, but that is when he would get into arguably the best shape of his life, for Cape Fear.

By this time, DeNiro was 48 and had been tapped to play a psychopath recently released from prison and bent on revenge. Playing a terroristic maniac who’s spent decades fuming and waiting and working out meant that DeNiro was going to work out like one. He dieted on that era’s basic bodybuilding diet, mixing a lot of greens with brown rice and lean meats, and did a fuckton of bodyweight work. Though he did at least 600 crunches every day, for his other work, he alternated push and pull days, doing three to five hours of pullups, chinups, pushups and dips five to six days a week to prep his physique for the role, and it worked- the makeup artists had to increase the size of their tattoo designs to account for DeNiro’s added mass.

DeNiro wasn’t jacked again until he hit 70, at which point he packed the mass back on to play an elderly boxer battling Stallone- in essence, it was Rocky vs Raging Bull in their twilight years, and both men hit the weights to prepare. Stallone being Stallone, he looked insane when he hit the set of Grudge Match. DeNiro’s transformation was less extreme (perhaps due to his strict adherence to his old-school program). Unlike how it worked on the set of Predator, the stars of Grudge Match didn’t train together whatsoever. Using two trainers, Deniro dropped twenty pounds and packed on some muscle for the role, and frankly looked better than most people in most gyms when he hit the set.

Perhaps a bit more impressive was DeNiro’s shape for his team-up with teenage hearthrob Zac Efron, who showed up on set looking like the love child of a mannequin and Zyzz. DeNiro managed to stand next to him shirtless and look like a badass old man as opposed to the broken down, elderly character actor he actually is. And that is perhaps DeNiro’s greatest gift- he might not be the badass he portrays in any movie, but he sure as fuck is a believable one onscreen.

So the next time you’re making excuses for being a fatass, or a weakling, or whatever other things your brain says to you when the lights are out and everyone is asleep, get the fuck up and move some weight. It’s not like you’re gonna sleep anyway, and if you’re telling yourself that shit, it’s likely because you haven’t put in the fucking work. As DeNiro himself says,

“You’ll have time to rest when you’re dead.”

Sources:

Ambrosino, Kristin, et al. The 15 Most Inspiring Hollywood Fitness Transformations. Men’s Journal. Web. 6 Apr 2020. https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/15-most-inspiring-hollywood-fitness-transformations/5-robert-de-niro/

Jha, Sameer.  How Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone got in shape for Grudge Match.  The Health Site.  16 Jul 2014.  Web.  10 Jun 2020.  https://www.thehealthsite.com/fitness/grudge-match-fitness-regime-110971/

Liked it? Take a second to support Jamie Chaos on Patreon!