20 Roles That Only Work Because an Actor Was Crazy Swole

We’re hardly the first to point out that the roles for ordinary-looking schmoes have all but dried up. But however you feel about it, it’s often part of an actor’s job these days to be ridiculously built. That’s understandable when they’re playing, say, a superhero or just a superhuman killing machine, but it gets weird when they take a break from the franchises to play a rando who just happens to have distressingly low body fat. Like, remember in the mid-‘90s, when they tried to make Arnold Schwarzenegger a comedy star, expecting us to just play along with the idea of a mattress salesman or research geneticist who is also a literal competition-level bodybuilder? It wasn’t cool.

“But sometimes an actor’s not-called-for-in-the-script physical fitness ended up bettering the final film,” Redditor JeffRyan1 told r/Movies. “For example, Whiplash. Miles Teller has about 40 years, and six inches of height, on his teacher, JK Simmons. But Simmons, in a tight black T-shirt, has these massive gunboat arms and a neck like a rhino. Yes, his character is cruel and manipulative and fickle and passionate and seductive. But he also looks like an Attitude-era WWE monster. People are scared not for Miles Teller but that he’ll jump out of the screen and attack them, Ring-style. Terrence Fletcher would have been a brilliant antagonist if played by (a) schlubbier guy. But JK Simmons (and his pacing-lion physicality) makes him terrifying. People break out in sweats watching this movie.”

They then asked, “What other films benefit from a lead actor being preternaturally fit?” and their fellow Redditors hit the gym in their brains.