Roger Staubach's name flies under the radar when it comes to speaking on the greatest quarterbacks of all-time. Yet, Staubach was a crucial contributor to "America's Team's" success throughout the '70s. While his tenure in the NFL was considerably short, he left a lasting impact on the league and the Dallas Cowboys organization that will be memorialized forever. Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio Staubach played his college football at the United States Naval Academy from 1962 to 1964. In at quarterback for the very first time, Staubach was sacked twice and went 0-2 for -24 yards. However, Hall of Fame coach, Wayne Hardin, kept his faith and continued to play Staubach who eventually won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy his junior year after leading the Navy Midshipmen to a 9-1 record in 1963. Following his tenure at the Academy, Staubach joined the military and even did a tour in Vietnam.
Roger Staubach was selected 129th overall in the tenth round of the 1964 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys as a 'future' pick due to Staubach's military commitment. Staubach wouldn't play a single snap of professional football until the age of 27-years-old. Staubach wouldn't become the Cowboys starting quarterback until 1971 where he would lead the Texas-based football franchise to their first-ever Super Bowl victory in Super Bowl VI against the Miami Dolphins also winning Super Bowl MVP honors for his performance as well. After suffering a severe shoulder injury and missing most of the 1972 season, Staubach would return and lead the Cowboys to three more Super Bowl appearances (X, XII, and XIII). While the Cowboys lost both Super Bowls X and XIII to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Staubach was able to help his team secure a second ring at Super Bowl XII. After eleven seasons in the NFL, Staubach retired a Cowboys legend in 1980.
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.