Taylor Kitsch: How He Prepped for Half-Naked "John Carter" Role

The former "Friday Night Lights" star headlines the new flick about a former Confederate soldier who is transported to Mars, only to be thrown into a war between the planet's battling civilizations.

toofab recently sat down with Taylor, where he opened up about the rigors of making an action movie, his reservations over his super-skimpy costume and becoming a sex symbol.

toofab: Did you have any reservations about the loin cloth costume when you first saw the designs?

Kitsch: Sure, I wasn't like "Can we put less on me?" It was like an ongoing joke. I think it's something you just accept within the character; it made sense for him. Obviously you're so exposed, but you accept it and run with it. That's what you gotta do.

toofab: What was the diet like?

Kitsch: It was a really fun diet, pizza and beer and cake. [Laughs] Don't you just f**king wish, for a minute, you could chug a cake and it would like, rip you up? [In actuality, Kitsch ate nothing but chicken breast, brown rice and protein shakes]

toofab: Did you have any cheat days?

Kitsch: I felt so guilty if I did, just because the pressure I put on myself to get to where John was, it's worth it now when you watch it on screen, you're like "F**k yeah, I'm glad I did kill myself for that!"

Once in a while I'd have a cheat meal. I think I'd have the odd dinner where I'd go gorge on something. Pizza, it's always been pizza.

toofab: What's it like being a sex symbol?

Kitsch: It's just flattering, it's flattering and you leave it at that. You don't let it validate who you are. It's not a bad thing, lets put it that way. I think at the end of the day, it's about the work and hopefully people enjoy the film, the emotional ride that I feel is there.

toofab: What was the hardest part of filming the movie?

Kitsch: The exhaustion, for me. I was just literally suffering from it. You're proud at the end of the day, but there are so many moments where you're just so exhausted, you don't feel like you can go on. Your body just will shut down and it did a few times on me.

I slept between takes, that's how tired I was. We were shooting on sand dunes sometimes, on a dry lake bed with 80, 70 MPH windstorms and I'd literally hold an umbrella, lay down in the middle of the lake bed and, just right there, I'd just sleep. I could fall asleep within 20 seconds.

toofab: How was it doing all the wire work?

Kitsch: There were days where I'm like, "It's great to be John Carter" and days where I'm like, "I f**king hate John Carter." You got the scars in the groin to prove it!

There's days where you walk into your trailer at 5:00am and the harness is just hanging there, waiting for you to put it on. You're just like whipping it against the wall like it's the last thing you want to see. [But] then there were moments when you're like 200+ feet in the air and your heart's pounding and you're like, "This is sweet!"

Check out Taylor in action this weekend when "John Carter" lands in theaters.