Matthew McConaughey has revealed how he lost an incredible amount of weight for his role as an AIDS sufferer in new movie Dallas Buyers Club.
The actor, who shocked fans when he stepped out looking scary skinny last year, lost more than 18kg – a quarter of his body mass – in a few short months by eating very little food for weeks.
“It was tough going, I’m not going to lie,” the 43-year-old admits. “The dieting was pretty hardcore. I was losing 7lb [3kg] every week.”
Throughout the slim down, Matthew ate few solid meals and his kilojoule intake was incredibly small.
“I’d have a Diet Coke, two egg-whites in the morning, a piece of chicken, then another Diet Coke. That was rough,” he said.
“I got down to nine-and-a-half stone [60kg] and I was always hungry, and irritable.
“My body resembled a little baby bird with its mouth open, crying ‘Feed me, feed me’ and you realise momma bird ain’t going to feed you. It’s hard.”
The actor, who once weighed a muscular 85kg, also trained by lifting and holding up weights for 15 minutes at a time.
“It takes a while for your body to understand that it has to feed off of itself and that you’re not going to give it something else from the outside,” he says of the experience.
“The most difficult part for me, the day seemed longer.
“I basically cut out meal times, which is part of our daily existence, so I felt like I had so much more time on my hands.”
The dramatic weight loss was inspired by his character Ron Woodroof, who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and given just six months to live.
“I’ve been trying to get it [the film] made for the past four years, so it’s been a labour of love and I’m really happy how it’s turned out,” he says.
“Ron Woodroof was an incredible man, a contradiction in his own terms, who took on a death sentence and made a difference that has reverberated around the medical industry and the world. His story has fascinated me for years.”
By January 2013, shortly after the film wrapped, Matthew had regained 12kg thanks to a new diet of fish, asparagus, eggs, nuts and sweet potatoes.
