Alexander Skarsgard’s ‘Tarzan’ Diet: 9 Months Of Chicken And Broccoli [Video]

Alexander Skarsgard is an actor who is taking a starring turn in the movie The Legend of Tarzan. As expected, playing Tarzan required Skarsgard to build an amazing body. The below video — titled Alexander Skarsgard’s Insane Diet To Get Jacked As Tarzan – CONAN on TBS— features Alexander telling Conan O’Brien exactly what he had to eat to get the ripped appearance he displays on the Tarzan movie posters.

Like many actors have described when preparing for roles that require low percentages of body fat to display lean muscles, Alexander told Conan that he had to eat a boatload of chicken breasts and broccoli to pull off the look. Skarsgard had to eat that way for nine months, saying no to things like cream and sugar and “fast carbs” that Alexander’s chef would normally use to spice up a chicken and broccoli dish.

The chef could use things like lemon juice to try and make the same meal of chicken and broccoli a little more interesting. However, Alexander’s trainer put the kibosh on most things that people might add to a chicken and broccoli meal.

Instead, Skarsgard said he had to focus on eating six times per day, every three hours. Alexander held up his hands to reveal the heart-sized portion of chicken and broccoli that was a part of his diet for so many months. It was a portion size that Skarsgard said left him hungry and thinking about food often. Therefore, when Alexander would eat a meal in five minutes, he’d look at his watch and note that he had two more hours, along with 55 additional minutes, until his next meal.

Skarsgard said he fell off the wagon in the months after his Tarzan role wrapped, but soon the movie folks called him back and asked Alexander to resume his diet of chicken and broccoli, because they needed to reshoot Skarsgard as Tarzan for one more scene that only lasted five seconds.

Alexander thought of asking them to CGI his image into the role, but instead, Skarsgard went back on the diet for a few months to shoot the final scene. Alexander joked that for the next Tarzan movie, perhaps Tarzan could be an out-of-shape guy sipping Pina Coladas and reclining in hammocks with the apes, picking lice off of one another.

Skarsgard can be seen in the top photo above at the Wildlife Sydney Zoo in Sydney, Australia.

Alexander appeared there on Tuesday, June 14. Skarsgard was in Sydney to promote the movie, which opens in Australia on July 7.

Uploaded to YouTube on June 29, the video has already received more than 180,000 views. It contains a description that quips about Alexander’s boring protein diet.

“To be the real King of the Jungle, Alexander’s life revolved around eating tons of bland, flavorless protein.”

As reported by the Inquisitr, people are using all sorts of things to add more protein — and therefore muscles — to their frames. There’s protein coffee that’s getting popular in a big way — along with HGH injections that one Instagram model uses controversially to help make her look younger, better — and to bring her gifts from her Instagram followers.

Zac Efron also once spilled his dieting secrets to Conan to let viewers know how he got so ripped, jacked, yoked and muscular for his movie roles. Efron’s diet also included loads of chicken breasts — so many that Zac said he just threw the chicken breasts in a blender and drank them at certain points, as can be seen in the above video.

Alexander also performed weightlifting exercises as part of his regimen to prepare for the Tarzan role.

[Photo by Rob Griffith/AP Images]