When Chris Pratt was tapped by Marvel to be their next leading man for what would go on to be the blockbuster franchise Guardians of the Galaxy, there was more than a whiff of skepticism.
Up until then, Pratt was best known for playing the pudgy, lovable slacker Andy Dwyer on Parks and Rec. The sentiment seemed to be, sure, Pratt was charismatic and could crack some jokes, but could he be superhero material like Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth?
But jaws were dropped, and doubts vanquished, when Pratt debuted a dramatic physical transformation as the broad-shouldered and impressively ripped Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord.
That stunned and impressed reaction is exactly what celebrity trainer Simon Waterson told The Daily Beast he hopes for when Pratt, and any other A-list actors and actresses call him up when they need to get in top shape for roles.
Pratt is far from the only celeb that Waterson has helped sculpt. He’s responsible for Daniel Craig’s formidable James Bond, working with Craig on each of his five Bond films, slightly adjusting him from a muscular agent in 2006’s Casino Royale to a sleeker build in last year’s No Time to Die.
Waterson is also to thank for taking Chris Evans from a wimpy-looking Army recruit to the shredded, action figure-esque Captain America. To prepare Jake Gyllenhaal for his sweaty, shirtless scenes in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Waterson was up at 3:30 a.m. for training sessions on the edge of the Sahara Desert.
And Waterson helped shift perception of Adam Driver from the weird boyfriend in Girls to the imposing and statuesque Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
One of the best aspects of his job, Waterson says, is the rewarding wash of amazement that comes from viewers and members of production when they take in the final result of such demanding and dedicated training that can sometimes take up to a year to achieve.
“There’s a massive sense of pride—more for them than for me,” Waterson says. “Because I know that they’ve done the hard work, I’ve just guided them in the fastest, most efficient way and safest way, and hopefully kind of put them in a place where people do go ‘Wow, oh my God.’”
“I do try to keep the reveal quite secret,” he adds. “I’m like, ‘Wear baggy jumpers and let’s not walk from the makeup trailer back to your own trailer with your top off,’ or stuff like that, Let’s keep it under wraps until that day, when that big red cross is on the calendar. That’s reveal day.”
Simon Waterson and Daniel Craig
HandoutPerhaps it’s Waterson’s English upbringing, but the former Royal Marine is relatively humble when it comes to his work. (“Anonymity has been what’s kind of kept me in the business, I suppose,” Waterson jokes.)
He’s so low-key that it was only at the behest of his celebrity clients that he decided to finally publish Intelligent Fitness: The Smart Way to Reboot Your Body and Get in Shape, a book filled with the stars’ exact workout routines and anecdotes about their training.
Craig even wrote the foreword for the book, opening with some high praise for Waterson, whom he counts as a friend: “Without Simon’s help and guidance, I wouldn’t have made it through 15 years of playing James Bond.”
Working on the Bond films is near and dear to Waterson, admitting it’s been his favorite project not just because of the legacy the franchise holds in British culture, but because of the sheer scale of the production.
“It’s a cultural thing because we’ve grown up with Bond. And it sometimes can be very quintessential English,” Waterson says. “But also, the nature of the movies, they’re so well done, everything is very much for real. From my perspective as a trainer, there is a lot happening. So, I get to showcase my skills, I get to be challenged on a daily basis, on a monthly basis. On a Bond movie, the bar is always raised, and you’re working with the top, top people in the world.”
But Waterson also has high praise for Marvel, which has steadily kept him employed by sending superhero after superhero his way, including Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch, after seeing how he transformed Evans for the first Captain America film.
It took a year of work behind the scenes before Evans was ready to emerge from that hyperbaric chamber looking like a real-life comic book action figure, meeting with director Joe Johnston and even creator Stan Lee about how they felt Captain America should look.
“I’ll never forget the day they shot that pod scene. It was a big day for Chris but also an important day for me. I was standing on set next to Stan Lee, with both of us looking at Chris, and Stan’s words to me were: ‘Now that’s Captain America,’” Waterson writes in the book.
But those 12 months of training were crucial, Waterson says. “That’s a Marvel thing, they give you the time,” he explains. “The amount of times that I get productions that come to and say in the call, ‘We need them to look like this in three weeks.’ And I just go, wow, you’ve got no chance. And you’ve got to say that, you got to manage expectations. You have got zero chance of doing what you’re asking me to do.”
Tom Hiddleston with Waterson's book
Handout“With Marvel, Bond, and a lot of the movies I’ve worked on, they’ve had somebody that has the perception enough to say, these things take a long time. And if you want the best finished product, then you need to do it slowly, carefully, and not try rushing, because otherwise people either get burned, or they get injured or they get ill.”
“It’s really commendable to [Marvel] that they really do support the actor in the characters that they’re embodying,” Waterson adds. “It’s so difficult to turn a human into a comic book character. To be an athlete like that, you need a lot of support, you need the treatment support, the nutritional support, you need the trainer, and you also need the rest as well.”
“And being very aware—not flogging your actor into the ground, because they’re just going to break. They’re really aware of people’s wellness, and they’re really kind to their actors. As long as the actors are invested, Marvel always gives their full support, full infrastructure. They now know the process and they know what it takes.”
And although Waterson has a pretty impressive client list on his resume, he says it’d be a fun challenge to get to work with Leonardo DiCaprio or even Timothée Chalamet, suggesting that he could be an option to play a young Tom Brady in a biographical film about the NFL star.
“I really love that kind of stuff, because I’m a transformation guy,” Waterson says. “I think [DiCaprio] would be good if he was in a really athletic role, all of a sudden, he is playing a boxer or he’s playing an athlete. That’s what I like, for someone to be challenged. I really like taking someone from nothing.”
