If there is one personality characteristic that stands out when it comes to Matt Ryan it's definitely his tenacity. No matter what his team is going through or what he may be handing on a personal level, he keeps his head held high and speaks well of everyone around him. His durability and consistency have led to a spot on our top fifty quarterbacks of all-time list. The 6'4 quarterback from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania played his collegiate ball at Boston College from 2004 to 2007 after being redshirted in 2003. In his final season with the Eagles, Ryan was presented with the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, the Manning Award, and was named ACC Player of the Year.
After outperforming many of his peers at the college level, Matt Ryan was selected 3rd overall by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2008 NFL Draft where he has played his entire twelve-seasons NFL career. After being named starting quarterback prior to ever throwing a pass as a pro-quarterback he was named the starter for the Falcons and did not disappoint. Ryan was named Offensive Rookie of the Year and led the team to the playoffs that same year. Since then, Ryan has led the Falcons to the playoffs an additional five times including a trip to the Super Bowl (LI) during the 2016 season. In 2016, Matt Ryan was named the NFL MVP, the Offensive Player of the Year, and led the league in passer rating (117.1).
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.