Orlando Bloom attended last year’s Toronto Film Festival in support of his movie The Cut. Orlando plays a boxer in it, and the film chronicles the character losing a lot of weight during his training. Which meant that in real life, Orlando had to lose a lot of weight, which he did on a diet of tuna and cucumber. The reviews out of Toronto weren’t all that great (apparently most of the movie plays out in a hotel room with Orlando’s character going to body-horror-level extremes to lose weight), though some critics acknowledged the work Orlando put in for the role. Well, one year later and the movie is now coming out, on September 5. So Orlando is once again recounting the grueling process of losing a substantial amount of weight in a disturbingly short period of time:

Orlando Bloom is breaking down what went into his insane physical transformation as a boxer in the new film The Cut.

In the thriller, Bloom plays an ex-boxer who suffered a defeat that ended his champion career in the ring. Then, when he “trains for redemption,” a synopsis teases, an “obsession takes hold and reality unravels — and he may be spiraling into something far more terrifying.”

Bloom, 48, tells PEOPLE he was “excited by the challenge” of transforming himself for the role.

“What I hadn’t expected and was surprised by was the mental toll that this kind of intense discipline takes,” he says. “The paranoia and anxiety were very real and disturbing, caused by the lack of sleep — turns out you can’t sleep when you’re hungry!”

Additionally, says Bloom, the “water restriction to get to my lowest weight for the final scenes led to obsessive thoughts of food, dreaming of what I could eat when finally off a diet of tuna and cucumber.”

The Pirates of the Caribbean actor warns that the length to which he went for The Cut is “definitely not something to try at home.”

He explains, “I was supervised weekly and my blood work monitored by an expert nutritionist, Phillip Goglia, who helped me lose 30 pounds in approximately three months.”

“Ultimately, this is a story about the struggles we all face and what it takes to battle our internal demons and find self-acceptance,” says Bloom.

The film, directed by Sean Ellis and written by Justin Bull, also stars Caitríona Balfe and John Turturro. It had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

[From People]

Wait, now Orly is saying he lost 30 pounds in three months?! Don’t get me wrong, that’s a big deal. It’s just that a year ago in Toronto Orlando said it was 52 pounds in three months. What, were those 22 pounds eaten up by tariffs? In any event, I’m glad that Orlando was supervised by a nutritionist the whole time he was losing the weight. And oh yes, I can imagine that not eating affects your mental well being! (And I do mean “imagine;” not eating is an activity I do not engage in.) Several years ago I worked on a project about Joan of Arc, and as I was reading the accounts of her life, specifically how her meals tended to be only some bread dipped in red wine, I couldn’t help but think, “Yeah, if all I was eating was some wine-soaked bread, I too would be convinced that I was talking to God.” And I obsess think about food quite enough as it is, so I don’t want to find out what it would be like to lie awake at night thinking about it even more, thankyouverymuch. Conversely, I can confirm that when you eat too much, the arms of Morpheus envelop you easily.

Photos credit: Mediapunch/Backgrid, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon and Avalon.red