Matthew Fox Explains Shocking Weight Loss for “Alex Cross”

"My mother hated it," Fox says

Want to make Matthew Fox happy?

Feed him some pies, ice cream, cookies, pasta and bread.

The former "Lost" star has a lot of eating to do ever since losing a staggering 40 pounds to play a frighteningly thin and ripped tattooed serial killer in the upcoming thriller "Alex Cross."

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"My mother hated it," Fox says with a laugh. "She's Italian and she's a fantastic cook and loves to feed her son more than anything. She couldn't stand it. It really upset her."

Fox attained his scary physique with the help of Simon Waterson, the same trainer responsible for Daniel Craig's hot James Bond bod, Jake Gyllenhaal's unforgettable chest and abs in "Prince of Persia" and the pumped up pecs of Chris Evans in "Captain America."

"We worked really hard on this for five months," Fox said. "The training sessions were mostly circuit training. You're going non-stop from exercise to exercise, never taking any breaks for about an hour and a half. I was burning a lot of calories and working on certain muscle groups. It was very strategic on his part and very gradual."

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In fact, he's only gained back about 15 pounds since finishing the flick. "I'm taking my time to put it back on but eating all the things I love to eat," Fox said. "I have a terrible sweet tooth. All those pies, ice cream and cookies were completely out the window when I was training. Pasta and bread were pretty much non-existent in the diet as well."

"Alex Cross" is based on novelist James Patterson's detective series. Tyler Perry takes on the starring role previously played by Morgan Freeman in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider.

"Like most everybody, I didn't really know Tyler Perry from anything other than the stuff he'd done up until this point," Fox said. "A really dark sort of revenge movie that was going to require a huge amount of drama and emotional intensity certainly isn't something we had seen from him in the past. But let me tell you, everyone who has seen the film really feels Tyler has delivered on that."

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And then some--like an elbow to Fox's head.

"We were doing this final mano a mano fight to the death on this catwalk above this old theater and it was something like 1 o'clock in the morning and we'd been at it for 10 hours," Fox remembered. "We're standing on a two-foot wide catwalk trying to make these huge roundhouse punches look good and Tyler caught me with an elbow. He apologized to me so many times. But it's OK. Things like that happen all the time."

"Alex Cross" is in theaters Oct. 19.

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