Gawker get their snarkypants in a twist over Josh Lucas‘ latest heralding of yoga in a recent article. But hey, Josh, we hear ya bro.
Lucas, who comes from an interesting childhood where his ‘hippie’ parents were assiduous social activists (when Josh was 11 his dad chained himself to train tracks over the nuclear-material-carrying ‘White Train’), is a dedicated yogi, but decided to stall his practice in prep for his role in a dark new indie film Death in Love:
In order to get into character, Mr. Lucas committed to being crazy for 25 days. Like the character, he avoided all things beneficial or healthy. “I tried to do everything to be beaten and rundown, a sense of feeling that pain. I purposefully did not do yoga or go to the dog park or hang out in bright, beautiful places.”
The film revolves around Nazi concentration camps and an entanglement of family emotion and dysfunction – not exactly the light fare of Sweet Home Alabama. Director Boaz Yakin explains, “It’s the idea of, do you hold pain in your cell structure?” We may not know what WWII was like, but pain held deep in the cellular laers we can all probably relate to firsthand, more specifically the release of it in yoga. (Don’t tell us you’ve never gotten sobby sally in pigeon hip opening!)
So did Josh return to yoga after 25 days of darkness? Yes! But he took it down a few hundred degrees notches.
He also switched from Bikram yoga, which is intense hot yoga, to Kundalini yoga. Sometimes, he says, “it’s as esoteric as sitting there with your hands in a strange posture and just quietly breathing.
He continues on how a regular yoga practice plays a role in quelling daily disturbances, not unlike fellow Celebriyogi pal and apparent influence (and sometimes look-alike) Matthew McConaughey:
“It’s funny, I was doing yoga the other day, and it must have been a fire truck that pulled up and started blasting its horn because the cars wouldn’t move out of its way, and I actually burst out laughing, ’cause I was like, ‘This is incredible.’ I was like, ‘Thank God I’m doing yoga right now, because otherwise I might not be laughing, I might be screaming.’”
Unfortunately we’re not likely to spy Lucas practicing beach yoga like the shirtless one, but rumor has it he and girlfriend Rachel McAdams have been yukking it up with the teachers at Golden Bridge Yoga NYC in NoLita.
Whether it’s a fire truck or a major gossip site yanking your chain, we give you credit Josh. Carry on with the yoga talk! Btw, total Celebriyogi of the Week material.
Great blog! have you been to golden bridge? I walk by it all the time and am intrigued. I think Kundalini might be the next big thing trend wise in yoga, not that i’ve advocating trendy yoga styles, but it seems bikram is hot now (sry for the pun) and i’m hearing alot fo ppl express interest in kundalini. it’s kind of strange because they are so different. But Josh Lucas and Rachel McAdams seem to support my theory!
hey, someone hook me up with these celebrity yogsters! I’m leading a yoga adventure in Africa next year and think all those celebs could afford it the airfare to Tanzania!