'Southpaw' Boxers on Their Fight Prep, Including Sparring, Cardio...and Abstinence
Much has been made of Jake Gyllenhaal’s transformation into a ripped muscle monster for his new boxing movie Southpaw. As he told Yahoo Movies in the video above, his preparation to play pro fighter Billy Hope continued up until the moment cameras began to roll.
“We shot the fights the first two and a half weeks of the movie, so we trained up to the first day of shooting like it was a fight,” Gyllenhaal said. “We had our weigh-in, and then we went back before the first day of shooting, and I was in there warming up, wrapping my hands, put my gloves on, walked out like you would walk out normally. We tried to do everything as real as we could.”
Gyllenhaal’s main ring rival in the Antoine Fuqua-directed movie is played by Miguel Gómez, who revealed even more extreme — and chaste! — prep for the film.
“We went to training camp, cardio, choreography, sparring. Living a clean lifestyle. I had a diet of a boxer. I didn’t go out, I didn’t drink,” he said. “I abstained from sex for two months because I know a lot of fighters who do that and I wanted to understand why — what it does to your body.” Now there’s commitment to a role!
Southpaw hits theaters on Friday, July 24.
