Dax Shepard is opening up about his intense fascination with the male physique — and the actor says the obsession may be tied to a painful chapter from his childhood.
The 51-year-old actor made the eyebrow-raising confession during the Aug. 10 episode of his Armchair Expert podcast while speaking with actor Taron Egerton.
“I f—— love men’s bodies more than anything in the world. I love muscle so much,” Shepard admitted.
But what began as a conversation about muscular Hollywood stars quickly took a much more serious turn.
Shepard explained that his fascination with heavily muscled men started when he was a young boy watching larger-than-life action stars including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
Born in 1975, Shepard recalled seeing Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian and being stunned by his massive physique.
“I was just like, wait a minute, a man can look like a gorilla,” Shepard said, adding that Stallone was also at the height of his action-movie fame at the time.
“It was like the birth of muscles,” he joked.
However, Shepard said he now believes there was a much darker reason those powerful-looking actors made such a lasting impression on him.
The Idiocracy star revealed that he grew up in a home with a violent stepfather.
“I grew up in a house with a violent stepdad beating everyone up,” Shepard said.
Looking back, Shepard said seeing Schwarzenegger as the seemingly unstoppable Conan gave him the idea that becoming physically powerful could protect him.
“When I saw Conan, I was like, ‘Oh, if I look like that, I got no problems for the rest of my life,’” he explained.
“If I was Conan, I got no problems.”
Shepard also said his appreciation for muscular bodies goes beyond appearance.
To him, a fit physique can serve as visible proof of a person’s discipline and commitment.
“It’s rare that you can see a visual display of someone’s work ethic and dedication,” Shepard explained.
The actor said he has struggled with an inner voice telling him he is lazy or undisciplined, making fitness a way for him to prove otherwise.
“I can see, ‘Wow, there’s some dedication here. There’s some execution. There’s like real commitment. There’s struggle,’” he said of people who have built muscular physiques.
“This is the proof of making oneself suffer for a goal.”
Egerton, however, offered a warning about the lengths some actors go to in order to achieve the ripped bodies audiences see on screen.
The Rocketman star discussed his dramatically lean appearance in the Netflix film Apex, admitting that maintaining it took a major toll.
“Every day I punish myself for not looking like that,” Egerton confessed.
But he said the reality behind that physique was far less glamorous.
“The truth of the matter is that I starved myself and I was running myself absolutely ragged to get there,” he said.
Shepard said he has since found a fitness routine that is far more sustainable for him.
Rather than forcing himself through an extreme diet, he said he eats in a way that allows him to stay fit without being miserable.
He also admitted that he works out constantly — describing exercise as a form of “medicine” for him.
“I work out all the time because I’m a nutcase and it’s my medicine,” Shepard said.
For Shepard, the biggest reward isn’t simply looking muscular. It’s knowing that he pushed himself to do something difficult even when he didn’t feel like doing it.
“The esteem I get from knowing I did the thing I didn’t want to do is joyful,” he said. “I love it.”
