AUSTIN BUTLER IS one of the more chameleonic actors working today. From his full-on method (and Oscar-nominated) take on Elvis Presley in Elvis to the delightfully deranged and hairless Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Dune: Part 2, the 33-year-old made his reputation as a star who is unafraid to lose himself in a role. So for his latest starring project, Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, you might assume that Butler’s physical prep would be minor compared to his previous work—he’s playing a fairly normal guy in the film’s version of 1998 New York City, after all.
That wasn’t exactly the case. Butler’s character Hank is a former baseball star, and Aronofsky wanted the actor to look like he’d spent years on the diamond—specifically, that he’d fit comfortably in a pair of extra-snug baseball pants. “I actually have a whole section of just baseball players’ asses that he would send me,” Butler told MH in his recent cover interview. “He was like, ‘Look how thick they are!’”
So his focus was on the rear-end. Butler worked with Beth Lewis, who trained Hugh Jackman for his return to superhero status in Deadpool & Wolverine, and the pair worked to pack on muscle mass in the right spots—namely, the glutes.
There was one specific exercise Butler did to build up his butt. He says he did “a ton of hip thrusters” to target the muscle group. That’s a solid approach—not only does the exercise allow you to hone a key movement pattern for the glutes, hip extension, it can also be loaded with heavy weight for max muscle gain.
Hip thrusts (and glute training in general) are good for more than just a baseball player butt. “Training your glutes is going to help bulletproof your lower back, preventing injuries there. It’s going to help you build strength and power; it’s going to help you jump higher, run faster, and you’re going to squat and deadlift more, too,” says Men’s Health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. Check out the video guide below for everything you need to know about the exercise:
For Butler, the training worked. He says he put on 35 pounds over the six-month period. That weight wasn’t all muscle, to be fair—since his character is also a bartender with a drinking problem, he was tasked with eating lots of pizza and drinking beer to avoid getting Jackman-level jacked. The surest sign that he set out to do what he accomplished, however, wasn’t what number was on the scale. Success in this case was best measured in how he was forced to change his wardrobe. “I’ve got a whole section of Celine pants that I just can’t even wear anymore,” Butler says.
Read Butler’s full Men’s Health cover story here.
Related Stories
Brett Williams, NASM-CPT, PES, a senior editor at Men’s Health, is a certified trainer and former pro football player and tech reporter. You can find his work elsewhere at Mashable, Thrillist, and other outlets.