literally geeking: 5 Actors That Made Men Hit the Gym...Part 1

There are a lot of films out there with buff action heroes in them, and I think we can all agree that it’s tough out there for struggling actors who aren’t also professional level athletes with six-pack abs and a $15’000 smile. Sometimes these men have flaws that make us not envy them so much however, like Jason Statham’s baldness or Bruce Willis’ baldness or Nicolas Cage’s acting so when I set out to make this list I decided that the stars had to be something special with such divinely sculpted definition that the movies themselves are carried forward only by the intensity of the men in the audience staring longingly at the screen and fighting back the gay. These stars of would have to make men feel so emasculated their only choices were to hit the gym or put a dress on. Although I’d also accept hunting down Taylor Lautner.

We all know that most of these action hero actors are paid to spend 6 hours a day in a gym with a personal trainer working on that “authentic” old school warrior look.

“No caveman ever fought a sabretooth without shredded abs after all.”

It all might just be make believe and we’ve all been through the harsh experience of having our male idol fantasies ruined when the magic of film ended and the actor opened his mouth for an interview.

"For me it was when Picard sang show tunes on the Enterprise."

But there are some actors out there where none of that matters. These men who are larger than life, whose muscles and attitude carry forward from the screen and into our hearts. So who are these modern day Adonis’ and when did they teabag us all with their sweet manliness all over our pathetic ‘girly man’ physiques.

5. Arnold ‘The Austrian Oak’ ‘Banged my Housekeeper’ Schwarzenegger

Arnie comes in at number 5 because it would be too obvious to put him in first place when you’d have to wait 4 more posts to get to him and he’s all you really want to read about.

Arnie first made us feel small and worthless with his acting in the documentary ‘Pumping Iron’ where he played a larger than life version of himself. He routinely lied about his personal life and his dedication to the sport of bodybuilding just so he could psyche out his competition and foster his own legend. Being Arnie, everyone totally bought it and he ensured that he would go on to win the big bodybuilding Chilli cook-off or whatever for the 6^th time in a row.

“Pumping Iron Chef”

Do you remember when he sat down with Hulks family and basically told him he was going to lose and how they all laughed while thinking ‘Fuck you Arnold’ and when sitting on a bus with Hulk he said he was going to fuck his sister, all the time acting like his best friend. It was here that you learned something about the mindset of being a winner and that is that it’s ok to manipulate people with weak minds or no minds at all, “Hulk Smash” isn’t exactly Einstein level thinking. After all what’s the point of Boeing sized biceps if your brain is still an 8 year old prepubescent girl. The lesson truly is that movies about overcoming bullies and finding your confidence are just wish fulfilment fantasies for pussies.

As an honourable mention I think we can all agree that ‘Conan the Barbarian (1982)’ also made us want to pick up a dumbbell, if only to smash the writer in the face. Arnie however used it as an opportunity to enter his man chilli into competition again and took home his 7^th win.