Standing at 6'5 and weighing 240lbs, Ben Roethlisberger is a massive force behind center with a rocket for an arm. He's helped the Pittsburgh Steelers become a repeat playoff presence for the past decade and a half. Ben Roethlisberger played his collegiate football at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio from 2000 to 2003. His initial year, he was redshirted and was named the starting quarterback in 2001. In his final season with the Miami Redhawks, he led the team to an unbeaten record and a 49-28 victory in the 2003 GMAC Bowl over Louisville. In three seasons of play, Roethlisberger broke twenty-one school records for the institution.
In the 2004 NFL Draft, Ben Roethlisberger was picked 11th overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers where he's played his entire sixteen-season NFL career. In his second year with the team, Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a championship in Super Bowl XL against the Seattle Seahawks. In 2008, the Steelers brought home a second champion with Roethlisberger leading the way and also made an appearance in 2010 at Super Bowl XLV. With so much success coming the way of the 6x Pro Bowler, signed two contract extensions worth $87 million in 2008 and 2014. His latest contract extension came in 2019, $68 million for two years of service.
Celebrities are no strangers to changing their looks for a role. And in some instances, they have to get pretty extreme. From 500-calorie-a-day diets to drinking pints of ice cream, Actors and actresses know what it takes to change their bodies in preparation for a new film.
Charlize Theron is no stranger to gaining and losing weight for movie roles, as we remember her transformation in Monster. Charlize Theron gained close to 50 pounds for her role as Marlo in Tully. Theron said that “for the first time in my life I was eating so much processed foods and I drank way too much sugar. … I remember having to set my alarm in the middle of the night in order to just maintain the weight.”
You’re used Chris Hemsworth's hulk-like figure in Thor, but In the Heart of the Sea required a totally different diet. The movie required the cast members lose a ton of weight to make their stuck-at-sea plight more believable. Chris Hemsworth said there were days when all he ate was one boiled egg, a couple of crackers, and a celery stick.
Anne Hathaway wanted to get serious for her role in Les Misérables, as she was playing Fantine, a starving prostitute with tuberculosis. So Anne Hathaway went on a diet of “rabbit food” to drop 25 pounds. Hathaway explained her diet was essentially just starving herself, but she didn’t want to give details, as she doesn’t want to encourage anyone to copy her emaciated look. She did note that she “just had to stop eating for a total of 13 days shooting,” however. And at one point, her bones became so frail that she reportedly broke her arm.
Matthew McConaughey's portrayal of Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club, a man with HIV/AIDS, was spot-on, earning him the title of best actor at the Oscars. But it also required a serious physical transformation. Matthew McConaughey said he lost 38 pounds for the role. During filming, he said he lost a lot of energy from eating so little — and he hit plenty of plateaus along the way. Finally, with a strict diet, he got down to 143 pounds. And while he did cardio to help with the weight loss, he said it was 90% what he was eating and portion size.
Hilary Swank had to put on 23 pounds of pure muscle for her role as a boxer in Million Dollar Baby. The process doesn’t sound easy, however. “I started working out five hours a day — I had to eat 210 grams of protein a day,” Swank said. She also mentioned that she had to consume 60 egg whites per day, and when that proved too difficult, she had to drink them. And to keep the muscle on, she would get up and drink protein shakes in the middle of the night.