As he contemplates reprising his iconic character from John Tucker Must Die , Jesse Metcalfe is opening up about the intense physical pressure he experienced when he first played the part nearly 20 years ago.

You guys have no idea, Metcalfe told fans during a Sunday appearance at Epic Cons Chicago, an entertainment convention. I was not eating, and I was working out three times a day.

The actor noted that he would hit the gym anytime that I was not on set, adding, I was taking it pretty darn seriously.

Directed by Betty Thomas, John Tucker Must Die is a modernized take on Shakespeares The Merry Wives of Windsor. The comedy follows a trio of teenage girls (played by Ashanti, Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel) who enlist a shy classmate (Brittany Snow) to help them publicly humiliate their high schools star basketball player, John Tucker (Metcalfe), after learning that hes been secretly dating all three of them.