From “I, Tonya” to Chris Farley, Pound by Pound

The actor Paul Walter Hauser emerged onto Fifth Avenue to choose up an açai bowl from a man on a bicycle, then headed again as much as his resort room. He wore slippers, shorts, and a black tank high that uncovered his biceps tattoos: on the proper arm, his nineties comedy heroes (“Brief & Stern & Farley & Varney & Carrey & Williams”); on the left, “1 Corinthians, 6:19-20” (“Your physique is a temple of the Holy Spirit”). “I used to be in a weight-loss problem with my brother-in-law,” he defined. “We mentioned whoever loses has to get that tattoo, which could be very like my household: simply hella non secular and excessive selections. I misplaced thirty-five kilos. Then I booked ‘I, Tonya’ and needed to put all of it again on.”“I, Tonya,” wherein Hauser performed one of many bumbling lowlifes who plans an assault on Nancy Kerrigan, was his breakout function. Since then, he’s been a dognapper (“Cruella”), a Klansman (“BlacKkKlansman”), a serial killer (“Black Chook,” for which he rapped his Emmy acceptance speech), the emotion Embarrassment (“Inside Out 2”), and the title character in Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell,” in regards to the safety guard who found a pipe bomb on the 1996 Olympics and was then falsely suspected of planting it. Hauser has cornered the market on a sure form of meaty, cloddish, but affable Everyman, his roles a confederacy of scene-stealing dunces. This summer time, he performs Liam Neeson’s police sidekick in a “Bare Gun” reboot, a lovesick ranch hand in “Americana,” and Mole Man, a subterranean supervillain, in “The Improbable 4: First Steps.”The promotional marathon was sporting on him, so Hauser had organized for an I.V. drip that morning, to “give me a jolt.” Carla Nilo, who runs a cellular service known as the Glow Café, arrived in his room. Hauser was getting the Glow Latte, which contained a excessive dose of Vitamin C and different vitamins, and assured a “lit-from-within look.”Hauser flung his naked toes on a settee and held out an arm. “One litre of I.V. fluid is equal to ingesting two gallons of water,” Nilo informed him, as she arrange a fluid bag on a stand.“Oh, reward God,” Hauser mentioned. He’d been dehydrated after beginning Zepbound, a weight-loss drug. However he didn’t need to lose an excessive amount of weight, as a result of he’s been solid as Chris Farley in a bio-pic. “A part of taking part in Chris is proudly owning the physique sort,” he mentioned. His stout determine has been a combined blessing in Hollywood: “The very factor I begrudge has additionally given me alternative.”Nilo inserted a needle, as Hauser lay again and ate his açai. He grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, the son of a Lutheran minister. “I inform individuals I’m a Jesus man, as a result of ‘Christian’ simply sounds such as you love Donald Trump and also you’re petrified of homosexual marriage,” he mentioned. When he was sixteen, he began doing standup at bars and church capabilities, riffing on the McDonald’s mascots. (“The Hamburglar—he’s like a homeless Zorro.”) At twenty-two, he auditioned to be an additional within the film “Virginia.” He informed the director, Dustin Lance Black, that his Oscar speech for “Milk”—wherein Black had promised queer youth that God loves them—had moved him to tears. Black ended up giving him a talking function.Hauser relocated to L.A. and booked a number of sitcom elements. However he ran out of cash and needed to return residence and work at a bowling alley. “It’s essentially the most demoralizing feeling ever, to be giving individuals their bowling footwear whereas they’re quoting a line you mentioned on tv,” he mentioned. In a funk, he drank and smoked pot. (He’s now three years and 9 months sober.) He hit 300 kilos and contracted gout. A couple of years later, he tried L.A. once more, sleeping on a kitchen flooring in a home with 5 roommates. “Shit was gnarly,” he mentioned. At auditions, “it was at all times ‘Are you able to be a Cheeto-dust-fingered, basement-dwelling fool?’ ” Then he booked “I, Tonya” and needed to regain weight to appear to be the “sonuvabitch” he was taking part in. “Taking it off took months. Placing it on was, like, three weeks of simply ice cream and whiskey and bread.”“I like bread,” Nilo chimed in.“Ah, bread,” Hauser mentioned. “Our pricey buddy and foe.” Recently, he’s getting in form by pursuing one other dream: professional wrestling. After preventing in a charity match, he’s teamed up with Main League Wrestling and now has a signature transfer: the Haus Arrest. “I wrap my arms across the physique, after which I pull them ahead, they usually land face-first onto the mat, as a result of I’ve them in a straitjacket,” he defined.I.V. accomplished, Nilo bandaged his arm. The drip had given Hauser a “surge of confidence,” he reported, however the açai-Zepbound combo wasn’t sitting nicely. “I’m in hell proper now,” he mentioned, as his abdomen squealed. “Fuckin’ hell.” ♦