No CGI there: Bale did it all through an almost terrifying dedication to the craft. He dropped 63 pounds to take the part of an insomniac machine worker who is slowly losing his mind in 2004's "The Machinist."

The wild stories that circulate about his transformation make it almost legendary. Bale reportedly lost it all by eating only a can of tuna and an apple per day. And co-star Michael Ironside ("Top Gun," 1986) said it was all due to a typo: The scriptwriter estimated the character's target weight based on someone several inches shorter than Bale, and never got the chance to correct it. 

Bale himself has been reluctant to indulge in the legend-building. For example, when asked by the BBC why he decided to starve himself for a role, he replied: "It just didn't enter my head that it could be done any other way."

As impressive as his loss was, Bale has become something of a hero in the weight-gain community as well. His next movie was "Batman Begins" (2005) for which he had to gain 109 pounds of muscle in under a year. A number of fitness websites use Bale as an example of the right way to put on muscle without putting on fat.

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