10 Strange Ways Actors Prepared For Recent Movie Roles

While he may not have had to go through "Tom Cruise Boot Camp" in the lead-up to his highly physical work on Robert Eggers' The Northman, Alexander Skarsgård still went to some pretty intense lengths in order to fully transform himself into the Viking prince Amleth.

Along with chowing down on nearly 4,000 calories-a-day in order to bulk up into a wolf/bear/man combo physique, the committed thespian spent a long time sharpening and perfecting his skills with an axe and hatchet, practising with said weapons for months before shooting.

Weights and exercises to stimulate his muscles in the same way this sort of battle tool would were infused into his workouts, too, on top of a second sword being crafted so Skarsgård could get to grips with it during his prep as well.

And if that wasn't enough evidence to prove just how determined the star was to nail each and every aspect of his character's physicality, it turns out the Tarzan star also found a way to mimic the sort of manual labour his character can be spotted doing on a farm when enslaved in the flick by "lugging big pieces of rock around" in the build-up.

And to clarify, he didn't just throw Dwayne Johnson around a gym for a few hours each day... I think.