Commodification of labor: movie star division

Since movie and TV star salaries spiked back in the 1990s, entertainment companies have been working hard to tip the balance of power back toward the owners of intellectual property (themselves) by emphasizing superhero characters rather than star power. A few actors in superhero franchises, most notably Robert Downey Jr., have been able to maintain enough leverage to cash in royally. Yet, Downey's take from playing Iron Man in the vastly successful The Avengers -- supposedly $50 million -- was roughly what Jack Nicholson is said to have earned for playing the Joker in Batman way back in 1989.

Here's an article on all the movie star hopefuls who workout at Gold's Gym at Venice Beach:

Almost any actor, even some of Hollywood’s most scrawny, can be physically transformed for the part if he’s willing to put in the hard work. The studios know this, which is why any inexpensive unknown can be chosen. ...

For last summer’s megahit “Man of Steel,” Snyder sent Cavill to work out with Twight. “I wanted Henry to be the personification of physicality,” Snyder told me. Cavill and Twight worked together for five months before production started and continued training during the six months of filming. Twight packed the pounds onto Cavill’s 6-foot-1 frame by putting him on a 5,000-calorie-a-day diet. Leading up to Cavill’s two shirtless sequences — a few days at the beginning of October 2011 and about six days at the end of that month — Twight scaled Cavill’s caloric intake back to about 2,800 calories. According to Twight, the pressure on Cavill was intense: “Henry was not a well-known guy, and he had chosen to be one of greatest comic-book icons ever. You’re not going to give that guy an inch.”

The whole physical transformation process is also part of the promotional campaign for the movies. That was part of Sylvester Stallone's brilliance in the 1970s-1980s to tap into this previously inchoate longing on the part of the audience that that the early 20th Century German poet Rilke (who has become a posthumous self-help guru) summarized as: "You must change your life."

A number of trainers and actors told me that steroids were out there and that everybody had a good idea of who was on them — though nobody is willing to name names. But as trainers like Twight make obvious, the Hollywood fitness mechanism is brutal and advanced enough to make any performance-enhancing drug seem primitive by comparison. “Post-‘300,’ there is a machine in place — it doesn’t work for everyone, though,” Twight said. “Not everybody can handle the training.”

Uh, that's what the steroids are for -- to speed recovery times to allow more lifting. 

I'm interested in learning more about the opposite process than adding all that muscle: the guys who went back to being normal. For example, in 2009 I ran into Jake Gyllenhaal at the frozen yogurt stand and he looked kind of silly all pumped up for his 2010 Prince of Persia starring role, but wearing normal Dockers-type clothes instead of a loincloth or whatever is more fitting for that level of musculature. But the next movie I saw him in, 2011's sci-fi Source Code, he looked reasonable again.

Presumably, if Prince of Persia hadn't bombed, he'd still be beefcaked up. Now, he's kind of gaunt for his next role.

Here's something that I can't recall male stars talking about: what it's like to be different shapes. How does it affect how you think? How does it affect your moods? By this point, Christian Bale, say, has a lot of data points on what it's like to be muscular, emaciated, pudgy, etcetera. But there isn't much public interest in that, but there is intense interest in the process of changing body shape.

On the female side, there is a slight bit more freedom for actresses to complain about the ferocious diets they have to maintain (but not to go off them). I can recall about a decade ago that Sandra Bullock's management issued a press release saying that she had decided to not starve herself anymore just to get roles. But, judging by her late-in-career Oscar success in Gravity and The Blind Side, she changed her mind.