Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) spent two months shedding 35 pounds, as he went on a fruit and coffee diet to prepare for his role as late South African photojournalist Kevin Carter in The Bang Bang Club.  The 30-year-old, who sustained kidney problems from his diet, described the film as a “zoo to shoot.”

“The emotional stuff, I was a wreck.  As an actor when you play this guy…at one point every scene he was broken,” said Kitsch about Carter, who committed suicide in 1994 .   “Every scene he is cracked, broken, weeping.  As an actor it’s very tough on you.  It’s an incredible amount of energy is what it is.”

The film is based on the book The Bang Bang Club: Snapshots for A Hidden War, which was written by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva.  Ryan Phillippe co-stars in the picture as Marinovich and Silva is played by Neels Van Jaarsveld.

The actor is also a lead in the 2012 film Battleship, a big budget adventure directed by Friday Night Lights filmmaker and producer Peter Berg. “I don’t want to just go and sign on to a big film and just phone in something,” said Kitsch, who co-stars in the movie with Liam Neeson and True Blood actor Alexander Skarsgard. “You have to grow with each experience.  And they are all different, but if there is not a challenge for me, if there is not a risk, why do it?  Hopefully you see that in the film.”

Click on the media bar and listen to Kitsch talk about his role as Alex Hopper in Battleship.

The Bang Bang Club, co-starring Malin Akerman, opens in limited release Friday.

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posted by Greg Srisavasdi