Either way, the internet spent this week spiraling over a single clip of the actress doing walking lunges across a Malibu driveway, and the discourse that followed had almost nothing to do with the lunges.
It had everything to do with the machine parked behind her — a $12,000 at-home treadmill-slash-strength-rig that has quietly become the most photographed piece of equipment in celebrity garages since the Peloton.
Here's the thing about Hollywood fitness: it has never actually been about fitness.
In 2015 the signal was a green juice and a pilates reformer.
In 2020 it was the Peloton bike, until that one "And Just Like That" episode killed it dead.
Now the flex is something bulkier, uglier, and far more expensive — a hulking hybrid machine that looks like it escaped from a D1 training facility and costs roughly the same as a used Honda Civic.
The celebrity roster using these things reads like a Vanity Fair Oscar party guest list.
Chris Hemsworth has essentially built a second career as a walking advertisement for functional training.
Mark Wahlberg has been posting 4 a.m. workout content for so long it's practically a genre.
And the newer crop — Glen Powell, Jacob Elordi, whoever is currently shirtless in a Netflix thriller — all seem to be training for a role that requires them to look like they could survive a shipwreck.
What makes this wave different is the aesthetic.
The old celebrity gym photo was aspirational in a soft way: a candle, a foam roller, a woman in matching Lululemon doing something gentle and mysterious.
The new version is deliberately unglamorous.
The caption is never "come join me" — it's a subtle dare, a suggestion that you could not handle this, and that's exactly why you're watching.
Sales of home strength equipment reportedly climbed again this quarter, and boutique gyms in Los Angeles and New York are pivoting their class schedules away from cardio dance and toward sled pushes, rucking, and anything that sounds vaguely military.
The message to the consumer is consistent: comfort is over.
And if you can't afford the $12,000 machine, well, that's sort of the point too.
The irony, of course, is that most of these celebrities are not training for wellness.
A rom-com where you take your shirt off in act two is a fitness contract.
The "wellness journey" is a press narrative layered on top of a job requirement, which is why the results look less like balance and more like a before-and-after photo for a project you'll never actually see.
And yet the rest of us keep buying in, one $38 resistance band at a time.
That's the genius of the trend — it sells you the discipline without ever promising the outcome. **Our take:** The treadmill isn't the story, and it was never meant to be.
Celebrity fitness content is a mood board for a life most people can't schedule, let alone afford, and the industry knows it.
Final Thoughts
Enjoy the shirtless photos — just don't confuse a $12,000 machine with a personality.