Jesse Plemons says he’s not ‘lugging 50 pounds around anymore’ as he opens up about weight loss

Over the last year and a half, Jesse Plemons has worked hard to lose more than 50 pounds.

The 36-year-old Civil War actor candidly spoke about his weight loss journey, admitting he never took prescription diabetes medication Ozempic to shed the pounds. In conversation with Entertainment Tonight ahead of the premiere of his new film Kinds of Kindness, Plemons revealed his eating method helped him drop weight.

Plemons said he gave intermittent fasting a try, limiting his eating to specific hours of the day. According to Healthline, intermittent fasting “cycles between periods of fasting and eating.”

“Intermittent fasting doesn’t specify which foods you should eat but rather when you should eat them. This means it’s not really a diet — it’s more accurately described as an eating pattern,” the Healthline report stated.

For the Love & Death star, the eating pattern helped him over the last 18 months. “Several people talked to me about intermittent fasting and I just gave it a shot,” he admitted, adding he was “surprised at how quickly it was effective.”

Plemons also acknowledged how often he’s accused of taking Ozempic to lose weight. “It’s really unfortunate that I decided to get healthy when everyone decided to take Ozempic,” he said. “It doesn’t matter, everyone’s going to think I took Ozempic anyways.”

When asked how he feels now that he’s lost all the weight, Plemons said: “Well, I’m not lugging 50 more pounds around.”

A motivation for Plemons in his physical health journey was to improve his mental health. But the on-screen star, who recently won Best Actor at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, prioritized his overall wellbeing for his children, too.

“I have much more energy [now] and, like I’ve said, I’ve got young kids, so I got to keep up with them,” he told Entertainment Tonight.

Plemons shares two sons – Ennis, six, and James, three – with his wife of two years Kristen Dunst. The duo met on the set of Fargo but didn’t pursue a romantic relationship until 2016. They welcomed Ennis and James after their 2018 engagement before tying the knot in 2022.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Plemons reflected on receiving the “Best Actor” accolade for his role in Yorgos Lanthimos’ new movie. “That wasn’t even on my radar of possibilities,” he confessed. “I hadn’t seen the film until Cannes and so I was just, you know, I don’t love watching myself on screen, but I was amazed that I was able to - after the first five minutes - keep watching.”