Zac Efron says eating too much salmon during The Iron Claw prep gave him mercury poisoning

Zac Efron says his The Iron Claw bulk came with an accessory no studio trainer puts on the mood board: mercury poisoning from eating too much salmon. On Modern Wisdom, Zac Efron tied the diagnosis to a 6,000-calorie-a-day diet that turned him into Kevin Von Erich size and, apparently, made dinner a heavy metal exposure event.

This is the kind of celebrity fitness detail that cuts through the usual actor-body fog. Not abs. Not discipline. Not a shirtless man talking about sacrifice while sipping electrolytes. Fish. Too much fish. A prestige bulk so aggressive it turned salmon, the wellness-industrial complex’s favorite pink rectangle, into a liability.

Tons of chicken, rice, sweet potato. Too much salmon. I would not advise eating as much salmon as I was eating. Got mercury poisoning.

The fish was not even the strangest part of the bulk

Efron was explaining the difference between getting cut for Baywatch and getting huge for movie training on The Iron Claw. Baywatch was the beach-body nightmare everyone remembers, but his wrestling body required a different kind of madness: more mass, more food, more functional punishment, then actual wrestling on top. He said he split the programmed training into two days because the volume was too much.

I went went from a 29 waist to a 34.

He said he got up to about 205 pounds at his heaviest. He is now around 175. That is not a haircut. That is a different human renting the same face.

The salmon claim is believable as a personal anecdote and weird as a public health lesson. Salmon is generally not the fish doctors warn people about first when they talk about mercury poisoning. The usual villains are bigger predatory fish. Tuna, swordfish, shark, that crowd. So if Efron really was diagnosed, the missing details matter: how much salmon, what kind, what else he was eating, what his levels were, and whether salmon was the whole story or simply the food he remembers hating by the end.

But the point isn’t that salmon is secretly gas station sushi with better PR. The point is that Hollywood body transformations are often sold as clean living with better lighting, when they can be closer to industrial meal logistics. The glamour version is discipline. The lived version is choking down another fillet because a calendar says your torso has to be ready by Monday.

Baywatch sounds less like fitness than daily stage prep

Efron also revisited Baywatch, the role that turned him into a walking Men’s Health cover and helped launch a thousand bad vacation decisions. His description now is not nostalgic. It sounds like a man remembering a science experiment that happened to have swim trunks.

I also took way too many diuretics, for that role. It was really, really bad.

That tracks with what people outside the industry often miss about screen physiques. The body on camera is not always the body someone walks around with. It can be a one-day optical trick built from dehydration, sugar, pump-up sets, lighting, and misery. Efron said he had to be shirtless every day, which meant repeatedly pushing his body into a look rather than simply being in shape.

So, it was kind of like doing a a bodybuilding competition every single day, like a mini bodybuilding prep every single day.

That is a useful corrective to the internet’s favorite question, how do I get Zac Efron’s Baywatch body? The honest answer appears to be: you probably don’t want it, and he didn’t either, at least not as a sustainable way to exist. The Iron Claw sounded harder because size was the assignment. Baywatch sounded nastier because leanness had to be performed on command.

The real flex is admitting this stuff is boring

The funniest thing about Efron here is how little romance he gives the process. He doesn’t turn the bulk into a hero’s journey. He calls bodybuilding limited and boring. The daily loop, as he describes it, is food, pain, sleep, trouble moving around the house, repeat. Very Marvel montage, if the montage included acid reflux and a spreadsheet.

There’s no grand scandal in Efron saying he ate too much salmon. There is, however, a useful little crack in the actor-transformation myth. These bodies are not just built in gyms. They are built in kitchens, trailers, hotel rooms, medical risk, bad sleep, and the strange professional obligation to make extremity look effortless.

The next time an actor says they got into the best shape of their life, ask the follow-up: best for the poster, or best for the bloodwork?