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Monday, January 19, 2015

Bradley Cooper clean

The NY Post just ran an article, How Bradley Cooper put on 30 pounds for 'American Sniper.' My first reaction was, oh boy, another actor goes on steroids.

Sure enough, the article talked about how Cooper ingested 8000 calories a day for his role, and trained up to four hours a day with his personal trainer, and "didn't want to use any steroids or hormones or anything" -- the usual garbage actors spout after going on the juice.

I then Google-imaged "Bradley Cooper American Sniper" to confirm my suspicions and saw these pictures:


Cooper actually does look as if he remained clean (i.e., he doesn't look all that great). He looks as if he put on maybe 10 pounds of muscle and 20 pounds of fat. But at least it's a natural look.

This is the only instance I've ever heard of when an actor, or his rep, talked about how hard he worked to gain muscle naturally -- and he actually did it naturally.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but my son, who's generally a harsh critic, said it was excellent.

19 comments:

Steven said...

My dad told me it was fantastic too.

Steroid use?

http://www.trollfootball.me/display.php?id=35738

Big gain. a similar thing happened to Ronaldo when he went to Real Madrid.

Bale is one of the fastest footballers in the world (was when he was skinny) and that's remarkable considering all the black players, so he's a natural athlete, but its a suspiciously big gain.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Cant say for sure that Bale is juicing, but you're right, it does look suspicious. (Generally, I want to see more than one before and after picture, photos can often be misleading, there's a lot of variance with angle, lighting, whether someone was pumped up, and whether he was flexing or not).

BTW, you were right about Deontay Wilder, he won the heavyweight championship Saturday night. I looked at a highlight reel of him, he's an incredible talent.

Steven said...

That's wise. There are before pictures of him where he has a better physique. They chose before and after pics that give the biggest contrast. I somehow don't see him juicing.

Wlad Klitschko is the real heavyweight champion. He has to beat him to be considered the legit champ.

I think the future of the heavyweight division is between him and a Brit called Anthony Joshua.

Connor Mcgregor is the rising star of UFC, a Dubliner, partly because he's a very entertaining, super confident talker. I watched him win again last night in Boston, where he has the Irish support, and he looks like the real deal. Very very impressive, though we don't know how he'll fare against a real good wrestler.

Your son will know about him.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gareth+bale+young+physique&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=fIS9VIyVOsysU5z_gvgP&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=conor+mcgregor&imgdii=fjsubA2crr_ydM%3A%3BC8pHJzze512WbM%3BfjsubA2crr_ydM%3A&imgrc=fjsubA2crr_ydM%253A%3BNIWvYoweiiqc0M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages.entertainment.ie%252Fimages_content%252Frectangle%252F620x372%252Fmcgregor.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fentertainment.ie%252Fman-cave%252FNotorious-Numbers-26-facts-about-birthday-boy-Conor-McGregor%252F272704.htm%3B620%3B372


https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gareth+bale+young+physique&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=fIS9VIyVOsysU5z_gvgP&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=conor+mcgregor&imgdii=_&imgrc=2o7Ap5ujC9yLVM%253A%3BLkG33sTkOkBmOM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fi3.mirror.co.uk%252Fincoming%252Farticle3895719.ece%252Falternates%252Fs615%252FConor-McGregor-and-Diego-Brandao.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.mirror.co.uk%252Fsport%252Fother-sports%252Fmma%252Fufc-news-conor-mcgregor-cm-4825738%3B615%3B409

John Craig said...

Steven --
I've seen McGregor fight, he's tough and enjoyable to watch.

Wlad Klitschko is impressive, as was his brother, but he's getting a little up there in age, and has to be a little shopworn by this point. He's a more classic boxer than Wilder, his punches come straight at you rather than looping the way Wilder's do, but Wilder is younger, faster, and has a reach advantage. Right now I'd pick Wilder to beat him.

My son's not a huge UFC fan. He follows it a little, mostly when he's in NYC and my brother is watching a show, but that's about it.

Steven said...

Hopefully you didn't see the Holloway fight because he was injured in that fight and that's why he didn't get the finish. He really is a compelling speaker and personality, which is a big part of his appeal.

Is your son a boxing fan or does he follow another sport?

I didn't see Wilder win his title but Stiverne is a decent boxer and people are surprised by how well Wilder handled him. Wilder is very powerful but his technique sometimes looks a bit clumsy and undisciplined. I'd now love to see him fight Tyson Fury, and the winner fight Klitschko.

The thing about Klitschko is that he can be knocked out and has been a couple of times, though he hasn't lost in the past 10 years (Vitali was the better of the two imo). That would be a really hard fight to pick. I guess I'm leaning towards Klitschko right now.

Look, an American has won the heavyweight title and y'all suddenly interested in the division again! :-D

John Craig said...

Steven --
"Y'all" ??? -- that doesn't sound like Liverpudlian accent to me! I guess it's a mocking imitation of a southern American accent --- which I don't speak with.

Actually, the reason I was interested in the fight was because you had mentioned him a while back (I'd never heard of him before) and remembered the name when I saw the headline Sunday morning.

My son's not much of a sports fan, period. He sees most sports as silly, feels nothing but contempt for most spectators, and, as a vet, scoffs at the idea of most sports as ritualized combat. (He seems to reserve his greatest contempt of swimming.)

He does have some appreciation and respect for the fighting sports though, and takes occasional boxing lessons himself. All that said, he's very much into physical culture though. I know that sounds a little contradictory, but it's actually not.

Steven said...

True, we don't say y'all and in Liverpool we solve the you plural problem with yous. I wasn't mocking. I just thought it worked well as a southerner would say it.

Your son is an interesting character.

I have to admit I'm not really a passionate sports fan like some people are. I don't see how you could care that deeply about it as an adult. I just take an interest. If you are in this country, its impossible to get away from soccer. Its prominent in the media, even in serious media outlets, truly a part of the national culture.

John Craig said...

Steven --
I know you weren't seriously mocking, I was just sort of teasing you.

I have to admit, I'm just another immature guy who somehow never outgrew his sport. I don't follow most sports, but I'm still a big swimming fan.

Actually writing a little post about Wilder right now.

Steven said...

okay, I guess your teasing worked. I thought you took it the wrong way.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Not at all.

Jokah Macpherson said...

I'd heard rumors Cooper was gay. These pictures don't do much to dispel them.

John Craig said...

Jokah --
I'm not passing judgment on Cooper's sexuality one way or the other, but if you look at that series of photos, those are actually the pants that all the military guys evidently use for training.

I know what you mean, though, if I saw someone on the street dressed like that…..

Anonymous said...

i've seen cooper inj a couple of other movies, particularly the hangover and jennifer lawrence movie. he looks like a man in this one, mostly because his jawline seems different and his hair is cut short. he's actually a good looking guy but for whatever reason he seems quite effeminate with long hair in his other movies. if you look carefully, his face looks a little spliced together - as in the top half fits as a whole, the bottom half fits as a whole but together there's something vaguely off about it.

y'all know what i mean?

not to be anti semitic or whatever ,but he's one of the few guys in hollywood to have a really roman / jewish nose. you could see caesar with that schnozzle!!

John Craig said...

Anon --
I"ve seen Cooper in a few other movies, too, but i have to say, he never struck me as effeminate. He was actually the most masculine of the four guys in The Hangover series. (On the other hand, he's no Craig Fairbrass, though few guys are.)

Just took a close look at some pictures of him, looking for what you were talking about, and I think I see why it is: it's not that the top half o this face doesn't match the bottom half, it's that his right eye is higher than his left one (it's more obvious in some photos than in others). He's basically a good-looking guy, though not as good-looking as many in the movie-going public seem to think.

Anonymous said...

you're absolutely right. now that i look at them it becomes very clear.

thank you for emasculating me further... i just had to google criag.

you should do a post about athletic ability/fighting ability vis a vis looks. as in guys like craig look really strong and tough, but how athletically gifted are they really. that would be an interestnig post.

for eg : lee marvin was a soldier, and genuinely tough. john wayne was a poofter.

charles bronson, actor was a boxer and had a very hard life. not a schmuck. steve mcqueen looked good and played tough but was not. audie murphy was 5'4 and looked like a boy, but he was.... audie murphy.

Anonymous said...

Power lifters with good genes and hard work will put on plenty of fat and muscle.

Pretty sick of hearing about 4 hours of training and huge calories.

If you could do 30mins of lifting heavy weights your lying.

Andrew

John Craig said...

Anon --
Ha yes, I use Fairbrass as an example because I just happened to see a movie with him on Netflix, The Outsider. Mediocre movie, but Fairbrass certainly looked the part, and I had the exact same reaction -- I felt a little emasculated.

I think you just answered your own question: there's little correlation between looking tough and athletic ability, though you seem to be conflating athletic ability and toughness a little. Athletic ability is one thing, fighting ability is a slightly different thing, and courage under fire is something else altogether. As you pointed out, Audie Murphy is the ultimate example of that.

Maybe the best test of that correlation wold be to just look at the Medal of Honor winners. From what I've seen, some of them look sort of tough, and some look like choir boys. Of course, one thing to take into account, people tend to get tougher-looking as they age, and most of those Medal of Honor winners earned those medals when they were quite young; who knows what they would have looked like middle-aged had they survived that long.

John Craig said...

Andrew --
I agree completely. None of these guys seem to allow any recovery time. The only way you can work to that long and not work yourself down to a crisp is to take steroids.

Anonymous said...

Hillary Swank spoke quite a bit about the amount of muscle she put on for the movie Million Dollar Baby.