Steven Krueger is the versatile actor who first discovered fame by showing in “Pretty Little Liars” and “Two and a Half Men” earlier than bagging the memorable function of “Josh Rosza” on “The Originals.”
Now, as “Ben Scott” in “Yellowjackets,” Krueger performs the assistant coach to the younger ladies’s soccer crew, however tells Muscle & Fitness that constructing his physique as much as the purpose that he’s plausible as a sports activities coach has not been simple. Fortunately, having performed tennis severely in his youth, Krueger has a aggressive spirit that also influences him to today.
So, forward of the extremely anticipated return of “Yellowjackets” (Showtime, March 26), we sat down with the star to seek out out extra.
“I started playing tennis when I was 4 years old,” says Krueger. “I played all the way through high school and started to get very competitive with it. The problem with me, growing up, is that I was the same height as I am now. I was 6’ 1” and weighed round 140 kilos so I used to be a twig. All the normal sports activities that you simply consider; soccer, baseball, and even basketball, I used to be simply too small to play them and obtained pushed round lots. Soccer and tennis had been the sports activities that I naturally veered in direction of.”
While scholarship gives for Steven Krueger to play tennis at school turned a actuality, a love of performing had developed and stolen his coronary heart, and so the will was now not there to chase Division I play. Still, the aggressive spirit developed by tennis has been of nice worth to a profession in theatrics. Starting with a want to fill out that six-feet-plus body. “I grew up in Florida with a bunch of guys that were hitting the gym,” he says. “The summer after my first year of college, I felt tired of being this skinny, tall, gangly kid, essentially. So, that entire summer I made a very concerted effort to put on as much weight as I could.”
Steven Krueger Is Focused on Being Screen Ready
As a tough gainer, Krueger says that he was consuming upward of 6,000 energy every day to gas weightlifting periods. “I accomplished my goal,” he shares. “I put on about 30 pounds that one summer. I filled out.” But even as we speak, the actor says that he finds slicing weight to be simpler than gaining it. “I still think, if the opportunity arose to do a superhero movie, or something like that, I would work with a trainer and I’d be able to get there, and I’ve done that a couple of times in my career.”
While Krueger now not trains his physique primarily to be match prepared, he’s all the time centered on being display prepared. “I think actors exist in only two states as far as physicality and fitness goes,” he shares. “I’m either in ‘character shape’ or ‘Steven shape.’ Yellowjackets is actually a great example because before we started Season 1, I was working on another show at the time (“Roswell, New Mexico”). I play a former faculty soccer participant (in “Yellowjackets”), and that nineties look is perhaps a bit of bulkier, and so I made a concerted effort to placed on round 12 kilos or so earlier than we began filming as a result of I actually needed to have that look.”
In “Yellowjackets” the soccer crew, workers and coaches are compelled to attempt to survive within the woods following a airplane crash, and so Krueger understood that by beginning out the season carrying a bit of extra bulk, he would be capable of shed extra pounds because the present progressed, serving to to current the phantasm that he was ravenous within the woods. Krueger says that when taking over new initiatives, there’s usually little or no discover or time to arrange, so he likes to remain in form the entire time, in order that he might be able to shoot at a months’ discover.
For “Yellowjackets” Season 2, Krueger dropped round 12 kilos with a view to preserve the viewers’s perception that he was going with out meals within the woods. “I do think its an important part of being an actor,” says the star. “Physicality is so important when it comes to embodying playing a character, so I think anything that you can do to help yourself feel like the character, the better your performance is going to be.”
Steven Krueger has Competitiveness in His DNA
There’s little question that Steven Krueger approaches his scenes with the identical gusto that he did with sports activities. “I think any athlete, growing up, there is that natural competitive nature,” he shares. “I competed in a lot of stuff when I was younger. I even competed in debate tournaments. I think competitiveness has always been in my DNA. I think that acting probably has replaced sports, in a certain way. This is an incredibly competitive industry.”
In “Yellowjackets,” Krueger has extra to concern himself with than simply his weight. He additionally needed to face a brand new performing problem as a result of early within the present, his character loses a leg as a result of aforementioned airplane crash. “They didn’t tell me that, until after we had filmed the pilot episode,” shares Krueger. “It actually happens in episode two. I panicked a little bit, honestly, because I had never done anything like that and there’s two elements to it. There’s the physical element and you have to deal with all of the pain and how to move and how to function and of course [in real life] I still have the leg, so what do I have to do with it to make it look like I don’t have a leg?” he notes. “Then of course, there’s the psychological elements as well, that come with a traumatic injury like that, so I spent several months researching and talking to people and learning as much as I possibly could.”
With unpredictable filming schedules, Krueger needs to be versatile about the place and when he trains. “In any given week, I may do yoga once or twice per week, I may do some interval training a few times during the week, I may do a couple of cycling classes, go for a run, or I may just get on a treadmill and set it to the highest incline. Constantly keeping the body guessing is so good for it,” says the actor.
In addition to his health club work, the place Krueger additionally likes to undertake conventional workouts such because the bench press and squat, he’s additionally an enormous advocate of getting outdoors. The busy actor finds that nature gives him with the stability he must put the depth of working in Hollywood again into its correct context. He’s additionally developed a love of pickleball. “Now, honesty, I play a lot more pickleball than I do tennis,” shares Krueger. “I still pick up the tennis racket once in a while but I’m so much more into pickleball because it’s just easier on the body. It’s a smaller court, you don’t have to run quite as much. Pickleball is great, you can pretty much play with anybody.”