The Hollywood Diet

For many years, we have seen actor Christian Bale as an elegant, narrowly chiseled man who could slip effortlessly into the tight, larva-like Batman costume. What a surprise then that Bale, in the first 15 minutes of his newest film “American Hustle,” lets out of his open Hawaiian shirt the kind of paunch you don’t even see every day at public swimming pools.

Lesser actors than Bale disguise themselves with sunglasses, wigs or false beards. But to play the role in a well-known film of a bombastic beer-bellied person—only the best in the craft do that. Counted among those is specialist in plump 30-somethings Renée Zellweger—“Bridget Jones Diary”—or Robert De Niro, who likes to play boxers who are overfed to the point of bursting—“Raging Bull.”

Professional Tub of Lard Portrayal (TOLP) is the high point of every serious Hollywood career. But the road from beanpole to wet noodle is hard and rocky, and depending on the amount of weight gain desired, preparation for a TOLP can last from four to six weeks. Most Hollywood stars are supported by an eating coach.

A good eating coach has professional experience fattening cattle and an intimate knowledge of the relationship between nutrition and fat distribution. He can therefore offer tailored diet programs—“Mushroom,” “Tuba Angel,” “Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig,” etc.

Typical ingredients of a TOLP diet: butter bread baked in olive oil with a large serving of rich cream cheese, pork dumplings, enriched stout beer, sugary drinks by the gallon, classic American fatty foods — quadruple burgers, pepperoni pizza — but also appropriate Austrian delicacies — Bauernschmaus, baked Emmenthal cheese with tartar sauce. During the TOLP diet, the following motto holds without exception: “You eat what’s on the table”.

The only thing missing to celebrate this potbelly-exploding effort is an Academy Award for the fattest actor of the year. The statue, of course, has to be twice as corpulent as the normal Oscar.