The first misconception is that we used a bodybuilding-type program of progressive overload and over-feeding with the goal of making the guys look huge. We took the opposite route of calorie restriction to make them look like they lived off the land, in the wild, all sinewy and ripped. The diet was adequate to fuel effort and recovery, barely. And we prescribed random physical challenges to keep them off balance, to ensure they never knew what was coming, to cause a stress-reaction, to break them, to make them look bad in front of each other, which eventually led them to trust one another. Trust made them willing to go all the way to the edge in each other’s company because that’s what the film was about: laying it on the line. Because fight training and conditioning and eating took place in the same facility – essentially in the same room – the actors and the stunt crew did everything under the watchful eyes of everyone else. Dietary slip-ups were noted, nods given when a particularly hard effort put forth, and general awe expressed when complex choreography was executed without flaw.
