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Jeffrey Dean Morgan on losing 40 pounds: 'I did it in the most unhealthy way I could'

By Marilyn Malara
Jeffrey Dean Morgan arrives at a photo call for the film "The Salvation" during the 67th annual Cannes International Film Festival in Cannes, France on May 17, 2014. UPI/David Silpa
1 of 2 | Jeffrey Dean Morgan arrives at a photo call for the film "The Salvation" during the 67th annual Cannes International Film Festival in Cannes, France on May 17, 2014. UPI/David Silpa | License Photo

LOS ANGELES, May 28 (UPI) -- Jeffrey Dean Morgan took drastic measures to lose 40 pounds for his role in Texas Rising, a History Channel original miniseries.

The Grey's Anatomy star, 49, chose not to eat anything but a can of tuna a day, telling Today Show hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb last week that his character, Deaf Smith, suffered from consumption -- another word for tuberculosis.

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"I got there and I was probably about 175, I left I was about 135," he said. "I ate a can of tuna fish a day. I did it in the most unhealthy way I could. I didn't consult with a doctor or anything. We had said maybe we should lose, like, 10 pounds and then I just kept going and going. And by the end of the movie I just looked like hell."

"I don't ever want to see tuna again," he said with a laugh.

The Watchmen actor also plays Joe DiMaggio opposite Kelli Garner in a new Marilyn Monroe biopic, The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe. Based on a book, he says the couple's relationship "was a little rough," but the two couldn't live without each other.

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