Dwayne Johnson trained for eight rigorous months for ‘Hercules’

Mumbai: For his upcoming film ‘Hercules’, Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson hit the ground with an eight-month training program that required him to beef up and sculpt his already extraordinary physique.

Dwayne has been really passionate about this project, ever since he visited Radical Comics office, and as soon as the project was in motion, he left no stone unturned to achieve the look of the Greek God.

“In my mind, you only get one shot at the iconic Hercules, so I really wanted to make sure that the version I had in my head was the version that the audiences would see on screen,” Johnson explains.

“And that was an experienced beast of a man, which I knew would require really hardcore strength and conditioning training and really hardcore dieting.”

He adds: “Creating and maintaining that kind of physique requires astute attention to detail. Sometimes you have to back off on cardio or add cardio or train three times a day or bump calories to 8,000 a day or back off calories. It’s a big challenge, but it should be a challenge to play Hercules!”

For all the extreme physical demands of the role – which were even more extreme given that Johnson had to have major surgery shortly before production began -- Johnson was equally interested in embodying the volatile emotions and relationships Hercules experiences as he comes to grip with who he is as a supposed demigod.