Actor Steven Krueger relies on exercise to stay competitive in Hollywood

Actor Steven Krueger relies on exercise to stay competitive in Hollywood

Steven Krueger is the versatile actor who first rose to fame with his appearances on Pretty Little Liars and Two and a Half Men before landing the memorable role of Josh Rosza on The Originals.

Now Krueger plays “Ben Scott” in “Yellowjackets,” the assistant coach of the young women’s soccer team, but narratesMuscle & Fitnessthat it wasn't easy to build his body to be credible as a sports coach. Luckily, Krueger, who played tennis seriously in his youth, has a competitive spirit that continues to influence him today.

So ahead of the highly anticipated return of Yellowjackets (Showtime, March 26), we sat down with the star to find out more.

“I started playing tennis when I was 4 years old,” says Krueger. "I played all the way through high school and started getting very competitive. The problem with me growing up was that I was the same height as I am now. I was 6'1" and weighed about 140 pounds, so I was a twig. All the traditional sports you can think of; football, baseball and even basketball, I was just too small to play them and got pushed around a lot. Soccer and tennis were the sports I naturally picked up have.”

While scholarship offers for Steven Krueger to play tennis in college became a reality, a love of acting had developed and stolen his heart, and so the desire to chase the Division I game was no longer there. Nevertheless, the competitive spirit developed through tennis was of great value for a career in the theater. Starting with the desire to fill this frame, which is over two meters high. “I grew up in Florida with a bunch of guys who went to the gym,” he says. "The summer after my freshman year of college, I got tired of being this skinny, tall, lanky kid, basically. So I made a very concerted effort throughout the summer to gain as much weight as possible."

Steven Krueger focuses on being screen-ready

As a hardgainer, Krueger says he consumed more than 6,000 calories each day to fuel weightlifting sessions. “I achieved my goal,” he shares. "I gained about 30 pounds this one summer. I filled out." But even today, the actor says that losing weight is easier for him than gaining weight. “I still think if the opportunity arose to do a superhero movie or something like that, I would work with a coach and I could do it, and I've done that a few times in my career.”

While Krueger no longer primarily trains his body to be ready for a match, he is always focused on being ready for the screen. “I think actors only come in two states when it comes to physicality and fitness,” he shares. "I'm either in 'character form' or 'Steven form.' 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 college football player (in Yellowjackets), and that '90s look is maybe a little bit bulkier, and so I made an effort to gain about 12 pounds or so before we started filming because I really wanted to see that."

In "Yellowjackets," the football team, staff and coaches must survive in the woods after a plane crash, and so Krueger understood that if he started the season with a little more mass, he would be able to lose weight as the show progressed, helping to create the illusion that he was starving in the woods. Krueger says that when taking on new projects there is often very little notice or time to prepare, so he always wants to stay in shape so he can be ready to shoot within a month.

For the second season of "Yellowjackets," Krueger lost about 12 pounds to keep viewers believing he was going into the woods without food. “I think it's an important part of being an actor,” says the star. "Physicality is so important when it comes to embodying a character, so I think anything you can do to feel like the character, the better your performance will be."

Steven Krueger has competitiveness in his DNA

There's no doubt that Steven Krueger approaches his scenes with the same enthusiasm he had in sports. “I think every athlete growing up has that natural competitive nature,” he shares. "When I was younger, I competed in a lot of things. I even competed in debate tournaments. I think competitiveness has always been in my DNA. I think acting has replaced sports in some ways. This is an incredibly competitive industry."

In “Yellowjackets,” Krueger has more to worry about than just his weight. He also had to face a new acting challenge as his character loses a leg early in the show due to the aforementioned plane crash. “They didn’t tell me that until after we shot the pilot episode,” says Krueger. "It actually happens in episode two. I honestly panicked a little bit because I'd never done anything like that before and there are two elements. There's the physical element and you have to deal with all 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 remarks. “Then of course there are the psychological elements that come with a traumatic injury like this, so I spent several months researching, talking to people and learning as much as I could.”

With unpredictable filming schedules, Krueger has to be flexible about where and when he trains. "In any given week, I do yoga maybe once or twice, I do interval training a few times a week, I do a few cycling classes, go for a jog, or just get on a treadmill and set it to the highest incline. Keeping the body guessing all the time is so good for it," the actor says.

In addition to his work in the gym, where Krüger also enjoys performing traditional exercises like bench presses and squats, he is also a big advocate of being outside. The busy actor finds that nature gives him the balance he needs to put the intensity of Hollywood work back into its proper context. He has also developed a love for pickleball. “Honestly, I play pickleball a lot more than tennis,” Krueger shares. "I still pick up a tennis racket every now and then, but I like pickleball so much more because it's just easier on the body. It's a small court, you don't have to walk as much. Pickleball is great, you can play with pretty much anyone."