Mark Ruffalo Ate 1,000 Calories a Day to Lose 20 Lbs for HBO’s ‘I Know This Much Is True’
Mark Ruffalo will do anything to play a role to the best of his abilities — including losing 20 pounds by eating only 1,000 calories a day.The actor, 52, manipulated his own weight in order to portray the Birdsey twins in HBO’s limited series, I Know This Much Is True, which is based on the Wally Lamb novel of the same name. According to writer and director Derek Cianfrance, the strict diet of 1,000 calories daily was coupled with Ruffalo’s desire to do “probably 500 pushups a day” while shooting the scenes as Dominic Birdsey, the neurotypical yet “aggressive” sibling.“I guess you could say he was always a little bit hangry,” Cianfrance, 46, recently told The Wrap of the Oscar-nominated actor.