Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the British actor who has achieved so much in his 23 years. He’s appeared in films that are both criticially acclaimed (Nowhere Boy) and huge Hollywood films (Kick-Ass) and even little British teen movies (Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging). Throw a marriage and two kids into the mix and it makes for a very busy young man.
The actor has had to beef up again for Kick-Ass 2 and catches up with the US edition of Men’s Health to talk about it.
He confesses to the magazine that he’d never been to gym before having to train. “Only recently have I been introduced to the gym and heavy weightlifting and things like that,” he says. “Before that, when I grew up I just did a lot of gymnastics and dance. I had more of an athletic background but nothing where I was in the gym or using any kind of weights.”
Talking about the difficulties of having to have a buff body whilst still being true to the character, he says: “Throughout the movie he’s still got to be a weedy kid from high school so I couldn’t have anything too dramatic. It had to be a reveal at the end. We got around that by wearing a lot baggier clothes. I don’t think there was a particular shape; it was more like he ends up getting trained by Hit Girl and by the end of it he’s like, ‘F**k it, if I’m going to be a superhero then I’d better start training like one.”
The training still proved quite tricky, however. “The main thing we’d do is I’d wake up in the morning and go for a 20-30 minute run before I’d eaten anything, maybe do a bit of kettlebells for conditioning. Then I’d have a big f**king breakfast. Then we’d go and train later in the afternoon: a lot of big compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, bench press. Eating some of the protein shakes, just trying to eat a hell of a lot more.”
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Posted by Amy Power.