Big George Foreman's leading man Khris Davis has told RTÉ Entertainment that it was harder putting the pounds on for his portrayal of the former world heavyweight champion than it was taking them back off again once filming had finished.
Star-in-the-making Davis goes the distance as Foreman in the new biopic, playing the legendary boxer all the way from a young man to middle age - and every weight in between.
"It was harder putting it on," Davis said of his time on the scales.
"I ate 7,000 calories a day, you know, and I gained 50 pounds in five weeks.
"I went from 225 to 275, and the heaviest I got was 282. And I did it all on a pescetarian diet, no sugar and no dairy because I needed it to come off because I was starting rehearsals for Death of a Salesman on Broadway just a couple of weeks after.
"Even in my rehearsal process, I was still shaving the weight off bit by bit."
Davis said his time on the Foreman set stood him in good stead when it came to Broadway.
"I had this immense sense of capability," he recounted. "I was ready to get to work, and I was ready to knock it out, and there was nothing I wasn't willing to figure out. I was always figuring out new things, and I was always growing, growing, growing in doing that play and working on my performance.
"I think coming off of doing Big George Foreman, the amount of work that went into studying him on a daily basis, moment to moment, what it took to get in the ring and to do all that boxing to gaining the weight all carried me into that play.
"I already had theatre experience before - and that's what helped me with the script for Big George Foreman initially - but the amount of work that I did, what I could achieve doing Big George Foreman, I carried that into doing Death of a Salesman. It was beautiful, I could feel my growth as an actor and as an individual."
Big George Foreman is in cinemas now.
