"I grew up watching 'Raging Bull,'" says the 43-year-old actor, referring to the 1980 film for which De Niro won the Oscar for packing on the pounds to play boxer Jake La Motta. "It was kind of a fantasy [to put on weight for a role]. I thought maybe once in my life I would have to do that kind of transformation. And now it's done."
The tall, wiry Cassel gained 40 pounds for the second part of the movie about infamous French gangster Jacques Mesrine, who was gunned down in his car on the streets of Paris by the police in 1979. Because Cassel knew it would be impossible for him to shoot the first part as the younger Mesrine and then put on the 40 pounds as the older bandit, the film was shot in reverse order. So he took four months to gain the weight before the nine-month production began.