Aussie actor Guy Pearce reveals secret bodybuilding past

FORMER Neighbours actor turned Hollywood superstar actor Guy Pearce admits he tried his hand, and body, for a stint at bodybuilding at the age of 19 wearing a luminescent G-string.

GUY PEARCE has revealed his secret past as a bodybuilder.

The former Neighbours actor turned Hollywood superstar actor says he tried his hand, and body, for a brief stint at bodybuilding at the age of 19.

Hollywood superstar actor Guy Pearce

“That is correct,” Pearce, 50, told Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa radio show.

“In 1984 at the Ringwood Cultural Centre I got up there in my little Borat/Bruno kind of luminescent G-string … fake tan and oiled up like a sardine and writhed around on the stage like an idiot.”

That was two years before Pearce landed his breakthrough role on Neighbours, playing Mike Young on the TV soap shot in Melbourne.

Actor Guy Pearce with "Neighbours" castmates in the 1980s, after his body building stint.

“Thankfully I didn’t but I would have gone on to represent Victoria in the nationals but my mum had booked a holiday to Fiji which I had to go on,” he explained. “There is no way in the world I would have won because those big boys from Queensland, I don’t know what sort of protein they were eating.”

Pearce’s film credits include The King’s Speech, Death Defying Acts, Prometheus, The Proposition, LA Confidential and The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Next up Pearce will be seen alongside fellow former Neighbours actor Margot Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots.

“She is sensational, she really is,” he said of Robbie. “She is quite versatile and mercurial. “She is really interesting to work with. Margot plays Queen Elizabeth the First and I play her adviser William Cecil and of course when you are in that sort of period, the 1500s, it is all about wigs and beards, not for Margot of course.”

Pearce is about to launch a new music album, The Nomad. Source: Network Ten publicity

Pearce is currently on the promotional train for his new music album, The Nomad, which is out next month.

In the extensive radio interview, he also spoke of attending Kylie Minogue’s recent 50th birthday bash in London, joking that she let him “off the hook” by telling him not to get her a gift.

“It was great actually. It was really funny. I always see Jason (Donovan) and I usually see Kylie when I am in London but never usually together so it was actually fun for the three of us to catch up with each other. Natalie Imbruglia was there so it was really lovely. I had to work the next morning so I had to go easy.”

Originally published as Aussie actor Guy Pearce reveals secret bodybuilding past