Jonah Hill Doesn’t Want to Follow In The Funny Fat Man Mold

Jonah Hill is known for playing the smartass, chubby sidekick in comedies like Superbad and Knocked Up. But the 28-year-old actor is now trying to shed his funny fat man image. With the help of a nutritionist, Hill recently lost a significant amount of weight. It’s a move he says he made for both his health and his career.

“I just had a moment in my life where I said I want to become a man, and that means with my career, that means with my life, that means with my health,” Hill explained to Bill Weir in a “Nightline” interview.

“I’m almost 30 years old — I’m not a foul-mouthed seventeen-year-old kid who’s trying to get laid. I’m an adult man who takes his work really seriously. I’m an actor, I’m not a comedian, I never was a comedian.”

Hill showed off his non-comedic acting chops recently playing a statistics nerd in Moneyball, a role which earned him an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor.’

I think it’s funny that everyone seems so shocked (and kind of dismayed) by Hill’s recent weight loss—which he credits to seeing a nutritionist, learning what to eat and Japanese food—and dramatic acting endeavors. The kid was young when he came onto the scene; he’s allowed to strike out in different creative directions as an adult (see: Sean Penn, Kirsten Dunst, Shia LaBeouf).

But perhaps most importantly (or most interestingly to me, anyway), he’s refusing to follow an ultimately destructive path just for short-term career gain. Hill has previously received favorable comparisons to the likes of Fatty Arbuckle (the original funny fat man), John Candy, John Belushi and Chris Farley. He could probably have raked in the money by expanding on his chubby wiseass shtick indefinitely. But Farley and Belushi both died of drug overdoses at 33; Arbuckle and Candy of heart attacks in their 40s. Is it any wonder Hill didn’t want to follow in their heavy footsteps?

Photo:  C.Smith/WENN.com