Ashton Kutcher spent time in the hospital after going on one of Steve Jobs’ infamous fruitarian diets to prepare for a new role in a biopic featuring the late Apple CEO.

AP Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in the film jOBS, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 25, 2013

Ashton Kutcher spent time in the hospital after going on one of Steve Jobs’ infamous fruitarian diets to prepare for a new role in a biopic featuring the late Apple CEO.

Kutcher plays the tech titan in a new feature film called jOBS, which hits theaters on April 19.

“First of all, the fruitarian diet can lead to, like, some severe issues. I ended up in the hospital like two days before we started shooting the movie. I was, like, doubled over in pain,” Kutcher said to reporters at the Sundance Film Festival, according to Mashable. “My pancreas levels were completely out of whack, which was really terrifying … considering everything.” (Jobs died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer in October 2011.)

(MORE: Steve Jobs Film with Ashton Kutcher to Focus on Apple’s Early Years)

The film debuted last Friday at the film festival in Utah to somewhat mixed reactions, including from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. “What I saw was just so far from anything that really happened or [was] said in those days,” Wozniak told ABC’s Good Morning America.

Another movie of Jobs’ life, written by Aaron Sorkin, is being produced by Sony Pictures. That film will be based on Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography of the late Apple CEO and founder.

Jobs had a lifelong fascination with fruitarianism, a diet consisting entirely of fruits, nuts and seeds. At one point, the practice also helped inspire one of Jobs’ first great strokes of genius. According to ABC News and Issacson’s biography:

… [Fruits] even served as inspiration for his company’s name. “I was on one of my fruitarian diets,” Jobs reportedly told Isaacson of his decision to name the computer company Apple.

Jobs had stumbled across an apple orchard when inspiration struck.



Video courtesy of Chris Barrett

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