From hunky to skinny: Local actor Desmond Tan loses nearly 15kg for new role

From hunky to skinny: Local actor Desmond Tan loses nearly 15kg for new role

SINGAPORE - Home-grown actor and heart-throb Desmond Tan is looking a lot thinner than his usual muscular self these days.

At an interview with Life! at Goodwood Park Hotel recently, the 27-year-old, usually noted for his buff arms and sculpted chest, appeared uncharacteristically skinny.

Ask him about it and he lets on that the new look is all for his latest role in Channel 8's historical drama The Journey: A Voyage, in which he plays a tin mine worker addicted to opium.

Adding that he lost "between 12 and 15kg over a month-plus", he says: "No one asked me to do this, but I really wanted to because I think this will make the role appear more convincing. I want to prove to people that I take my work seriously."

He lost the weight through a combination of "dieting on soda crackers" and also from lack of weight-training at the gym.

"My metabolism level is quite high, so I lost the weight quite fast as soon as I stopped going to the gym. Basically, I lost all of my muscle mass," he added.

In fact, the bachelor had hoped to lose even more weight, but was advised not to by the drama's production crew.

"I wanted to make it more extreme, to lose weight until I looked like Christian Bale in The Machinist (2004) where you can see all of his bones. But the producers didn't let me - they were worried about my health."

Tan says: "I just really wanted to try that type of method acting for myself. I want people to know that I'm serious about my job and that I'm serious about acting. I can only go back to the gym now that I've finished filming this drama."


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