The newest entry in the Predator film franchise, Hulu’s Prey is getting a lot of praise. Its star Amber Midthunder is getting a lot of notice for her role as Comanche hunter Naru, but there is another great actor in the movie that, due to the fact that we never see his face, is potentially easy to over look. Dane DiLiegro plays the Predator in Prey and the man certainly put in the work to play the role.
Dane DiLiegro spoke with Bloody Disgusting and revealed a bit about the workout routine he had to go through in order to play the Predator. And while DiLegro is a former athlete who certainly knows how to stay in shape, it turns out he needed to do a very different workout to be the Predator. He explained…
I had to lose 25 pounds to play this character. They wanted a lean, dynamic, more animal Predator. You know you look at a feral cat; feral cats are not very plump. Traditionally I’m bigger, more muscular. I had to get away from that.
Predators have always been physically massive creatures, and while they generally rely on their advanced technology to defeat their prey, they can always get physical when they need to do so. In the original Predator the movie needed a creature that looked like it could go toe-to-toe with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But in Prey the Predator is fighting a very different adversary. Naru is a young woman whose strength is not in muscle, but she can move fast, and it seems that the filmmakers wanted a Predator that would match her in a similar way. Dane DiLiegro says he went through a lot of training to be able to move quickly and smoothly, something that wasn’t necessarily easy for a person his size. He continues…
I trained for two months parkour. I’m 6′ 9″; not many 6′ 9” guys do parkour. I had to learn the basics of that. I trained in martial arts for two months. I trained my neck. I teamed up with a company called Iron Neck and strengthened my neck for two months because the Predator’s head sits on top of my head, and it’s a lot of weight on the neck. It was about 13 pounds or something. On top of all the acting, I did all the stunts and the motion capture.
So Dane DiLiegro lost 25 pounds working out so that he could gain 13 of it back when it came to wearing the head of the costume to play the Predator. The Predator is obviously key to the franchise, even if he never speaks and DiLiegro is getting a lot of praise for being the newest actor to join the fraternity that has played the alien hunter. In fact Prey is just getting love from most of the people who love good movies.
