10 Actors Who Totally Transformed Themselves For TV Shows
7. Rob McElhenney - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Rob McElhenney plays Mac on It's Always Sunny, and though we're never deceived of this fact throughout the show, he nevertheless put himself through one of TV's all-time most ridiculous transformations for the sake of our entertainment.
At the start of the seventh season, fans were shocked to see that Mac had gained a significant amount of weight, and stranger still, "Fat Mac" wasn't achieved through a fat suit or prosthetics as is typically the case, but McElhenney doing it the old-fashioned way.
Over the course of seven months between seasons six and seven, McElhenney gained 60 pounds by consuming 5,000 calories per day while working with a nutritionist to do it as safely as possible.
McElhenney then returned to his regular weight after shooting the season by reducing his caloric intake and working out, but that still wasn't the end of the story.
In the show's 13th season, Mac revealed himself to be in extremely chiselled shape, rocking a shredded bod which again got fans asking what fresh hell he'd put himself through to achieve it. In typically sarcastic fashion, the actor replied on Instagram:
"Look, it's not that hard. All you need to do is lift weights six days a week, stop drinking alcohol, don't eat anything after 7pm, don't eat any carbs or sugar at all, in fact just don't eat anything you like, get the personal trainer from Magic Mike, sleep nine hours a night, run three miles a day, and have a studio pay for the whole thing over a six to seven-month span. I don't know why everyone's not doing this. It's a super realistic lifestyle and an appropriate body image to compare oneself to."