Action and martial arts movie actor Conan Stevens told the Obesity Campaign UK this week about his love of bodybuilding and its part in getting him into the film industry.
The Australian actor, wrestler and bodybuilder, surfer and stuntman has been in many high-octane feature films over the past few years, such as “E Tim Tai Nea”, “True Legend”, “Chandni Chowk To China”, “Drona”, “Hannuman, The White Monkey Warrior”, “Som Tam”, “Bangkok Adrenaline”, “The Missing Link” and “Bodyguard 2.” He is currently appearing in the HBO series Game of Thrones, alongside Sean Bean.
He revealed this week that he made a “conscious decision” to get into acting at the age of 16, around the time that Arnold Schwarzenegger made bodybuilding a world famous phenomenon and began to cause a stir in the movie world as Conan the Barbarian.
“My friends and I had started bodybuilding as a sport to build or muscles because we wanted to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger,” he recalled.
“I remember my three friends at the time saying ‘We have decided to become Professional Bodybuilders, what are you going to do?’”
His answer was that he was going to become a professional wrestler thanks to his bodybuilding physique and “use that fame to get into movies.”
From a slow start, playing a “professional wrestler” in a TV ad, his acting career snowballed, moving into feature films and TV shows.
His advice to anyone hoping to lose weight via the Obesity Campaign UK was for them to “find whatever it is that will motivate them, but it has to be a good solid reason that gets them emotional.”
He added: “You can do anything in life that you set your mind to. If a beach bum from Australia can get onto the world stage just by having a go then you can do
anything you want – the hardest part is deciding exactly what you want from life and then starting it, everything else gets easier as you get better at it.”