by It’s one thing to play Superman on screen, but it’s another thing entirely to walk around looking like a Kryptonian in your everyday life. And the first thing you’re likely to notice when staring at Henry Cavill on Zoom are his shoulders—not even his Clark Kent jawline can distract from the small mountain range erupting from his humerus and clavicle. None of this is exactly news, given the multiple high-profile roles in which Cavill has transformed his body for—The DC universe, The Witcher, extremely buff Sherlock in Enola Holmes—but you truly cannot prepare for how mesmerizing those deltoids are.
Which is why Cavill’s latest role, as an ambassador for the supplement company MuscleTech is perhaps the most natural line on his resume. GQ caught up with the 38-year-old actor to find out how supplements influence his diet, his thoughts on pre-workout, and just how many meals a day you need to eat if you ever want shoulders like his.
Henry Cavill: It’s an interesting thing, because I’ve been very fortunate over my career to have pros guiding me. As useful as that has been when it comes to physical results and how the body looks when I’m taking my shirt off on camera or whatever the case may be, it does certainly hinder my growth in knowledge. And so over the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to quiz my trainer, Dave Rienzi, more and more about the why of everything. Why is that going in? Why this rather than that? Aren’t they both carbohydrates? Why this protein versus that protein? What does it mean when you do this before or afterwards? And so my journey is still very much in process.
So I have a protein shake before bed, and there would be times where I’d go, you know what, I want to lose a few more pounds, so I’m just going to cut the pre-bed shake out and not tell my trainer Dave. And it’ll be fine, because I’ll be losing a few pounds and then I’ll get back to showing progress photos and people will be like, “Oh wow, look at the progress you made!” But if I took three weeks off, when I would send Dave a progress photo, he would go, “Okay, cool. So are you still taking the pre-bed shake?” And I go, “No, because I wanted to lose a few pounds.”
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That’s when I started asking these questions because he then informed me that the problem with that logic is that, yes, you do have fewer calories going into your body, but you also go into a catabolic state with how hard you’re training and how hard you’re working. So actually what you’re doing is you’re losing muscularity while you sleep. So your body won’t be looking as good. And almost immediately when I went back to the pre-bed shake, I was like, “Yeah, the body looks better already.” And for me, that was a massive learning point and a real shock. I thought, I need to start asking more questions and stop thinking that I can pull a fast one and pull the wool over his eyes.
I love that Dave instantly knew, too. Like, “Hey, are you skipping that?” But I think that’s the preconceived notion, right? Don’t eat before bed.
Absolutely. The protein shakes before bed, they are a real lifesaver for me. Especially with the amount of work, with the amount of output I have. It’s important to make sure that all the right stuff is getting in at the right time so you don’t lose anything and you’re not wasting any time at the gym.
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So you’ve got the protein shake right before bed, but what does a typical day of eating look like?
It all depends on what we’re trying to achieve. And if we’re doing a mass-gain thing, there’s going to be more calories going in. We’re kind of doing more maintenance right now. At the moment I’m in pre-production for a film. There is going to be action in it and so during the day I’m doing lots of fight scenes, learning choreography, and that is obviously physical. So I kind of have to balance out my cardio and gym work depending on what we’re doing each day.
But typically when I wake up, I will have a protein shake. One and a half scoops of a 100% grass-fed whey protein—vanilla flavor—with a cup of oats and some berries and blend that up. That’s one part of the breakfast. The other part is an omelet with a bit of ham in there, and I think it’s about six ounces of beef filet. Depending on when I train, I’ll always have a post-gym shake, but then I’ll go on to meal two about three hours later, which is chicken and white rice with a side of curry sauce, because I like the flavor.
Meal three is another three hours later and will be the same, but with brown rice. Then meal four will be, I think about four ounces of beef with sweet potato. I kind of like sweet potato fries because I’m not a huge fan of sweet potatoes. I have someone who preps my meals and delivers them maybe every three days—time to prep meals would be impossible with my schedule. So I just whack those sweet potatoes in the oven to crisp them up as much as possible. And then it’s the pre-bed shake. Ideally, another three hours later but if time is of the essence and I need to get to bed, then it’s okay to have it an hour and a half, two hours after.
Is your pre-bed protein shake pretty similar to the shake you start your mornings off with?
No, it will just be protein. It’ll just be two scoops of protein or one and a half, depending on where we’re at.
