‘The Fighter’: Mark Wahlberg and other bodies in motion

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With this week’s unveiling of awards-fodder flick ‘The Fighter,’ we got a glimpse at the contrasting bodies of stars Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, and the grittier side of Amy Adams.

The Ministry recently sat down with ‘The Fighter’ producers Todd Liebermann and David Hoberman to talk about the transformations of their leading men, and Adams’ first mainstream voyage to the dark side.

With a peek at the trailer above, one can see Wahlberg’s obvious, um, charms in the role of boxer Micky Ward. Stomach and guns? Check.

Both producers said it was easy to envision the real-life boxer Ward, but they polished it with some personal touches.

‘Mark was Micky from the beginning,’ Liebermann said, ‘but aside from the look, we had some old home movies with Micky and the family’ that helped.

Turning heads in the opposite direction is Bale, once again frail and singed around the edges for his art.

‘He transformed himself for this role; he lost about 30 pounds,’ Hoberman said of Bale, ‘and this was a pretty short shoot.’

Bale acknowledged that his dramatic weight loss for 2004’s ‘The Machinist’ ...

... wasn’t executed properly, according to the duo.

‘For ‘The Fighter,’ Christian did it [in a] more systematic and healthy way,’ Lieberman said, adding that Bale consulted a doctor this time around.

And then there’s the emotional makeover for Adams -- an actress whose very career is rooted in a cloud of G-Rated dreams, finally going for the Hard R.

‘Fortunately for us, Amy wanted to change her image,’ Lieberman said, ‘and this role is a really tough role. She’s got an F-bomb every other word, has a rough fight with another girl.’

‘She’s so bubbly,’ said Hoberman, ‘but there’s also a much realer, more street-savvy person in Amy herself.’

With ‘The Fighter’ opening Dec.10, the producing team has a laundry list of big-name projects in the works. Their slate includes the Jason Segal-penned update for ‘The Muppets,’ the untitled re-teaming of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, and ABC’s new cop drama ‘Detroit 187.’

[For the record, 12:45 p.m.: In an earlier version of this post, Micky Ward’s first name was incorrectly spelled Mickey.]

-- Matt Donnelly
Twitter.com/MattDonnelly

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