The Tomb Raider video game franchise has been a mainstay in the industry for nearly 25 years now, first finding a place on Sega Saturn and early Playstation consoles before arriving into the current framework of gaming. Oh, and let's not forget the Hollywood movie adaptations. Most recently, Lara Croft was translated for the big screen with Alicia Vikander playing the globetrotting adventurer for 2018’s Tomb Raider. The actress went through an insane physical transformation for the role that she’ll be gearing up to repeat for the announced sequel.
Alicia Vikander was trained by world-renowned Swedish health and wellness expert Magnus Lygdback, who also got Gal Gadot in shape for Wonder Woman and helped transform Ben Affleck for Batman in the DCEU. The trainer has now shared some of the secrets involved in Alicia Vikander gaining a whopping twelve pounds of muscle for Tomb Raider with his “Magnus Method”:
The Hollywood trainer broke down some of the key elements involved in getting the Oscar-winner fit to play Lara Croft, and it’s really interesting to see the process. Magnus Lygdback said her custom diet is his most requested video thus far, but as he explains on his YouTube channel, it was tailored to her specific lifestyle, metabolism and measurements. Even so, it’s awesome to get a look into the actress’ journey to play the well-known video game character.
Magnus Lygdback explained the three cycles that go into training celebrities when they undergo major physical changes: the build up cycle, cutting cycle and the maintenance cycle, which occurs on the set of the film. That’s right, once actors get fit, they have to maintain it for months on end while also filming day-by-day! It sounds like a ton of work.
The trainer explained that working with Alicia Vikander was a specific challenge because he would not be able to join her during filming in South America. For that reason, Magnus Lygdback had the actress adopt the Ketogenic diet because he felt he could track and control it the easiest while they were apart. The actress was instructed to eat around 1,900 calories a day in a very specifically curated diet, along with her intense training that consisted mainly of strength training with a bit of cardio, mixed martial arts and other stunt training.
Twelve pounds of muscle is a huge amount for Alicia Vikander, especially since the actress is 5 feet 5 inches tall and has a 117-pound frame. The actress was previously a trained ballet dancer, but obviously Lara Croft’s skillset is a whole different game. Previously, Vikander explained that it was decided for her to put on that amount of weight based on the character doing things like pulling herself up from a bomber plane.
Alicia Vikander will return as Lara Croft for a sequel set to be written and directed by Lovecraft Country’s creator, Mischa Green. Soon it will be time for her to get back in video game shape!
