Aaron Taylor-Johnson Shares How He Got Beastly for ‘Kraven the Hunter’

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter Nutrition

To eat like the world’s greatest hunter, Schmit built Taylor-Johnson’s diet around real food and stripped away the extras, like sugar. “The idea was, we have this monumental task of eating this much food—how can we do it, and keep you functional?” Schmit says. That meant getting protein from real sources in any way possible, from bone broth and gelatin gummies and marshmallows to steaks. Then, they added carbs for plenty of fuel to burn.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter Upper Body Workout

After the diet had run for three months, it was time to kick the training into gear. Taylor-Johnson began working with Kingsbury to refine the accumulated mass into the svelte, slightly-scary Kraven shred to drop body fat. “From my perspective, it was the perfect starting point because this person’s already got muscle mass,” the trainer says. “Building quality muscle takes months and years. Dropping body fat takes weeks.”

The workouts were generally organized by upper-lower body splits, with four to five training sessions per week. Kingsbury challenged Taylor-Johnson to take on each exercise for 2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps, pushing to failure with one rep left in reserve. Each session, Taylor-Johnson’s focus was to do one more rep than he did last time to drive muscle growth.

Bench Press

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Lat Pulldown

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Seated Row

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Cable Preacher Biceps Curl

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Single-Arm Triceps Cable Pushdown

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter Stunt Prep

The weight room was only part of Taylor-Johnson’s physical prep to portray the animalistic Kraven. He needed to be able to move convincingly as an apex predator onscreen, too. “I was doing a lot of parkour movements and quadruped movements—meaning I run on my hands and feet,” the actor says.

That meant Kingsbury had to add some movement-specific exercises to the workouts. The trainer also had to make sure that Taylor-Johnson kept up with his preparation outside the gym too; whenever there was a physically-demanding maneuver during the shoot, there was an extensive warmup before every take.

The extra work paid off. Taylor-Johnson’s physique communicates the character’s lethality, all lean muscle without the bulk that would slow lesser anti-heroes down. All accomplished, according to the actor, with no major issues. “We got through an entire shoot with a ton of action with not one injury,” he says. “I thought that was amazing.”