7 Actors Who Went Through Incredible Body Transformations (But Not For The Movie You Think)

7. Tom Hardy - Warrior NOT The Dark Knight Rises

Tom Hardy is no stranger to physical transformations, though none to date has turned as many heads as his considerable gain in mass to play the villainous Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, with reports suggesting that he'd gained as much as 50 pounds to resemble the famously bulky comic book antagonist.

Except, Hardy had already done the vast majority of the heavy lifting, quite literally, for his previous MMA drama Warrior.

For the film, which was shot shortly before The Dark Knight Rises, Hardy gained almost 30 pounds of muscle during an intense pre-production training regimen.

And so, Hardy's task for Bane was relatively simple: build fat on top of the existing muscle, which was largely a result of diet as opposed to weight training.

Warrior built the physical foundation for Bane, allowing Hardy to more or less eat his way to cutting the stocky figure required for the iconic supervillain.