Mila Kunis Black Swan Diet Saw Very Little Eating
Mila notably played Natalie Portman's ballerina rival Lily, and in a new interview with Vogue to celebrate the film's release 15 years ago, she opened up about her grueling routine to achieve the skinny physique required to play her.
Mila said, "My prep was a lot of dancing and very little eating — which I know you're not supposed to say, but it's the truth. I drank a lot of broth and danced for 12 hours a day."
The actor, who stands 5'4," previously revealed that she got down to just 95 pounds so she would "look skinny" enough to convincingly play a ballerina. "Because I'm not a ballerina, I have to get on point within three months, and so to get on point, you almost have to fake it," she told Howard Stern in 2016. "So, the best way to fake it is to unfortunately look like it."
"I smoked a lot of cigarettes and I ate a limited amount of calories," Mila added, specifying that she survived on an average of 1,200 calories a day. She told Howard that she had since stopped smoking, and although she insisted she lost the weight "in the healthiest way possible," she said she wouldn't recommend her regimen to anyone. "I don't advocate this at all," she stated. "It was awful."
In the Vogue interview, Mila also opened up about other challenges while filming, including the physical toll that dancing eventually took on her body.
She said, "We would shoot those dancing scenes for hours, and I had bruises all over my ribs just from being lifted over and over again. I also dislocated my shoulder pretty early in the production and thought I was completely screwed, but [director] Darren [Aronofsky] sent me to an acupuncturist and I somehow came out totally fine."
According to her, Natalie also suffered an injury on set while shooting the scene of Lily being pushed into a mirror. Natalie told Vogue she "completely blacked that out" and did not have "a hint of a memory" of it, but Mila recalled, "You were scarred up all around your neck."
You can read more about their experience filming Black Swan here.
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