In Training for the Gold
“I really can’t reveal yet what I’m wearing,” Sissy Spacek says with a laugh when asked to describe her gown for the red carpet walk Sunday night at the 74th Academy Awards in Hollywood.
The best actress nominee for “In the Bedroom” says she is sworn to secrecy but adds that she will look like a million bucks whatever she wears because of “Guru D from NYC.”
He’s otherwise known as David Kirsch, a personal trainer who has been helping the actress in Manhattan for the last six weeks to buff up and slim down for her close-up at the Kodak Theatre.
“I’m working on myself from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet,” the 52-year-old Spacek says by phone from New York. “I know that I will have a happy body underneath whatever I wear.”
Kirsch is just one of the many personal trainers working overtime in the days leading up to the Oscars. Most are sworn to secrecy by their celebrity clients, for whom they serve as culinary and spiritual coaches as well as workout police. At Crunch, a fitness center on Sunset Boulevard, trainers and instructors are busy working with several celebrity clients, says spokeswoman and assistant manager Tracy Antoniewicz.
“We do have at least one Oscar nominee up for one of the big categories doing cardio, cross training and treadmill, getting ready for the big night trying to fit into something outrageously small,” she says. Many clients who will make the Oscar night party scene are working out with the Crunch staff, even participating in the gym’s newest craze, cardio striptease, a dance class taught by Jeff Costa that helps one achieve rock-hard abs and concludes with 15 minutes of lap dancing.
The class, says Antoniewicz, “reflects our culture right now in that people are dressing very sexy and they want a lean body to show off. They all want to make sure they look the part, and the part is young Hollywood.”
That’s why 41-year-old Kirsch has moved West for a week and set up shop at the Mondrian Hotel to help Spacek, model Heidi Klum and at least four other stars and models achieve toned biceps and gravity-defying derrieres in a matter of days.
Spacek, a size 4, according to her trainer, was the only one of his clients who would talk. Perhaps the actress plans to shed her usual conservative black pantsuit and bun hairdo, which she donned again to accept the Golden Globe for best actress in a drama for her role as the uptight, grieving mother in “In the Bedroom.”
Making a splash on the red carpet can be as arduous as landing a plum acting assignment. Designers may throw gorgeous dresses at celebrities, but it’s all how a star wears a gown--the camera puts on an instant 10 pounds, and there’s no take two on the red carpet. For some--such as Halle Berry--any angle will do. For others, Joan Rivers, for instance ... well, you get the picture.
Kirsch has worked with Klum, Naomi Campbell, Bridget Hall and New York fixtures such as Ivana Trump at his private gym, Madison Square Club on Fifth Avenue. He charges $150 to $250 an hour for his exercise and diet sessions.
Hoping to ride the Oscar frenzy, Kirsch, who arrived Sunday, is working with his clients in the Mondrian’s gym and using the hotel’s kitchen to oversee the preparation of fat-free, broiled, baked and leafy green meals--three to six a day. Snacks will include power drinks, a handful of almonds or nutrition bars that will be delivered to clients by messenger.
Described by Time magazine in 1999 as a “cross between Cal Ripken and a machine that crushes cars,” Kirsch will even escort his Hollywood clients to meals in the days before the Oscar ceremony. Serving as a menu monitor of sorts, he’ll smack the hands of Spacek or Klum if they reach for anything that has been sauteed, deep fried, drowned in sauce or drizzled with butter.
He allows no alcohol, no bread, no complex carbohydrates. In other words, you’ll never eat cake in this town again.
“That’s the name of the game,” says Kirsch, who left a career as a lawyer in the late 1980s to devote himself to fitness and health. “But my game isn’t a numbers thing. I don’t care about the pounds. I want the person I’m working with to feel better, to have a better sense of wellness about herself. You can be a size 12 and look gorgeous and healthy and fit, and you can be a size 2 and have none of that going on. At the end of the day, it’s about finding that balance in yourself--mind, soul and body.”
One of his clients, he explains while munching on roasted chicken breasts, green beans and half a baked yam at a Koo Koo Roo in the mid-Wilshire area, has hired him to help her look great in black Gucci pants for the Oscars.
“I can do that,” he says. “I can make her feel better in those pants because if she feels better in them, she’s gonna look better too. That’s the balance. And that’s better than someone telling me, ‘I need to lose 5 or 10 pounds in three days,’” which he says he can help someone accomplish with the right balance of food and rigorous exercise.
It’s wellness that he wants his clients to achieve, as he explains in his book “Sound Mind, Sound Body” (Rodale Press, 2002). Spacek rang him up, having heard about him by word of mouth.
“David is highly motivated and infectious,” Spacek says. “His techniques have been a lifesaver for me and have given me a real peace of mind, something I think we can all use about now.”
Spacek says she had been traveling a lot and not getting enough sleep. She contacted Kirsch for help. Her energy level was low, and she wanted to eat better and fit in some workouts even though “I’ve been into exercise my whole life, been a runner and been into health and fitness always.”
About six weeks ago she decided to set aside time to learn about fitness and nutrition with Kirsch. “I’m just a beginner at all this,” she says, “but so far it’s been great--knock on wood. There are no frills in my plan, but it’s been very healthy, and I’m working on my body.”
In town since Wednesday night, Spacek will follow Kirsch’s meal plans and work out with him. Mostly, she’ll be eating lots of spinach, broccoli rab, salads, vegetables and protein such as chicken and fish that will be broiled, boiled, baked and skinless. The actress has eliminated bread, pasta and desserts. For snacks she’ll down strawberry and blueberry shakes mixed with whey protein and mineral water. She’ll munch on cantaloupe and honeydew.
“She’s a fan of low-carb peanut butter bars, so we’ll have some of that too,” Kirsch says. Her daily two-hour workout routine will include running, push-ups, rowing and treadmill time. “And we’ll throw in some boxing; she loves that,” Kirsch adds.
“She wants to focus on two areas: her arms and upper body and also on the lower body. I don’t know who’s designing her dress or what it’s gonna look like, but she is definitely open to possibilities if the arms are toned and the butt is nice and tight and the hips are smaller. So really it’s about all those things.”
