Stanley Tucci oozes a level of style and sophistication most of us can only dream of. Part of this suave image is his affinity with food. A glance at Tucci’s Instagram shows the beloved actor is a dab hand in the kitchen – he’s authored two books on the topic, not to mention launched his own range of Italian-made pans.
Yet, at 63, he’s also in remarkably good shape. This begs the question: how does someone balance such a passion for pasta and wine with a healthy lifestyle?
The answer is two-pronged. Tucci enjoys everything “in moderation”, and has celebrity trainer Monique Eastwood on speed dial. Tucci has trained with Eastwood for roughly a decade. But he wasn’t her first high-profile client; that was his sister-in-law, Emily Blunt.
When I dialled in for a video chat, Eastwood was staying with the pair of them and their partners – literary agent Felicity Blunt and fellow actor John Krasinski – at a picture-perfect countryside estate in the Cotswolds.
“Her sessions incorporate Pilates, light weight training, aerobic exercise, ballet and yoga, all seamlessly intertwined to make even a half-hour workout life-changing,” Tucci says.
Here’s how he’s used her methods to take his fitness “to another level”, and how you can sample this secret sauce for yourself.
How does Stanley Tucci train?
“I did my ballet-inspired class with Stan this morning – he loves that,” Eastwood tells me. The pair also do HIIT and stretching sessions together, while Tucci does more traditional strength work under his own steam, training five or six days per week in total. But it’s Eastwood’s workouts he’s found to be “life-changing”.
“Monique has completely altered the way I exercise for the better by focussing on my core strength,” Tucci says. “I have been working out for over 45 years, but training with her has gotten me in the best shape of my life. She effortlessly tailors her sessions to fit each client’s needs. I will never stop training with her or applying her techniques to every workout I do.”
To be clear, Tucci has always been fit. But he came to Eastwood wanting to try something new, and she delivered exactly that.
Pairing well with Tucci’s fondness for food, Eastwood’s classes contain a complex mix of ingredients. She takes the flow and freedom of movement from her time as a dancer, then blends it with the anatomically-oriented principles of Pilates and heart-rate raising HIIT methodology. The result is a recipe for success, helping clients develop agility, mobility, stability, strength and cardiovascular fitness in one fell swoop.
Like Pilates, there’s a major emphasis on core strength, technique and alignment too. Every class is jam-packed with cues to help you master each sequence of exercises and move optimally.
“I’m bossy,” Eastwood warns. “I always talk during my HIIT classes, which is almost impossible. But I’m trying to tell you what to do all the time because I’ve seen so many things over 35 years of training like this.”
However, if you’re able to take her advice on board, Eastwood promises the payoff will be worth it, both in everyday activities and other types of exercise you enjoy.
“I always say to people, ‘Use me as a technique person, then go back to your other stuff’. If you’re a tennis player, your tennis will be incredible because you can now take more power from your deep core. Your golf swing will be better, and you’ll be more agile for skiing. You’ll also find you’re able to lift heavier weights and do it more efficiently because you’re really using all your back and core muscles.”
Tucci balances Eastwood’s sessions with other strength training workouts – he’s known to be a fan of the TRX suspension trainer. And that’s exactly as it should be, the trainer says.
“People love what they love, and I just want you to train and stay strong,” Eastwood explains. “For example, I have a guy in America who’s an actor, and he can lift quite heavy. But he wants agility and to avoid injury, so now he trains with me twice per week. We go a little lighter with the weights, but we focus on building that endurance in his core and pelvis before he goes into the gym and does something crazy.”
How to train like Stanley Tucci
Like a cocktail of yoga and dance choreography, most of Eastwood’s classes involve a series of flows rather than individual exercises. As such, writing one down in enough detail for you to follow would result in a novella.
Instead, you can take her training method for a spin by trying the eight resistance band moves demonstrated below. Eastwood performed 10-20 repetitions of each exercise (on each side, if it’s a one-sided movement) every other day while on holiday to maintain strength and muscle.
“Watch your alignment and use a strong breath pattern to activate your core as you do each move,” she advises.
Eastwood also coaches using live-streamed classes and follow-along videos on her Eastwood Fit app.
“I wanted people to have what I teach the celebrities without paying the private fees, so I created an app with the sort of classes I give my clients,” she explains.
Most of her regulars train with her for an hour at a time (Anne Hathaway does four or five full-length classes each week), but there are shorter classes available on the app. Eastwood highlights one other slight difference between classes on the app and those with her clients too.
“I might challenge the people I see more often with a little bit of extra weight or a harder combination,” she explains. “I throw a little extra thing in there when I can because they see me every week.”
“The funny thing with my method, and I think Stan would agree, is it doesn’t ever feel easy because I constantly change the goalposts. I’ll move you in a harder direction, or in a slightly more complicated way.”
“When you get better, you tend to go a little bit lower in your lunge or your squat or your plie, and you get a little bit more activation in the muscles I want you to be working. Then, when you add a 4kg or 5kg dumbbell, that really brings your heart rate up. And it’s meant to be hard.”
Consistently pushing her clients in this way is one of the underpinning factors behind Eastwood’s success. “Don’t fear and shy away from challenge, because challenge creates changes in your brain and your body,” she says.
“Stick with my method and it’s going to stimulate your body in many different ways. It will give you endurance in your muscles, and you’ll have a much more profound understanding of your body in space, your posture and how you move in the world. I think that’s why my actors love it – it gives them that body awareness, and the agility and mobility to perform.”
Should you try Stanley Tucci’s workout?
Some celebrity workout plans are better left to the celebrities – Zac Efron, for example, has spoken of the extreme lengths he went to when preparing for Baywatch and more recently The Iron Claw.
“I fully commit to my roles, which I love, but it takes a toll – my back was messed up after The Iron Claw,” the actor revealed on Instagram after the film’s release.
Tucci’s training is different. It’s designed to help you move well, and move freely, for as long as possible. This is why Eastwood tries to make it challenging, but “achievable for everyone to do”.
“I want you to train forever,” she tells me. “I’m 57 and a half and I’m still training hard. I’m training the same way I’ve trained for the last 35 years – it hasn’t changed.”
She focuses on moving the body in a wide variety of ways, developing a range of motion across all joints while building strength in as many positions as possible. And when your body is strong in most positions, injury is much less likely to come knocking. Balance also plays a major role in her classes, as do twisting and bending – when was the last time you did any of these things in your usual workouts?
It’s not all-consuming either. Eastwood’s method is designed to complement and coexist with other activities you enjoy, rather than replace them. If you like lifting weights or have a favourite sport, have at it.
And what if you love pasta and cocktails? If Tucci’s evidence is anything to go by, this type of training makes a worthy plats d’accompagnement to that too.
