There aren't too many physical specimens at the quarterback position that have been built like Cam Newton. Standing at 6'5, 245lbs with breakaway speed and pocket presence makes Cam Newton an NFL anomaly. Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, Newton ditched the possibility of attending the universities of Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, and in order to attend the University of Florida in 2007. After accusations of stealing a laptop, Newton packed his bags and eventually landed in Auburn in 2010 where he won the Heisman Trophy, the Manning Award, and AP College Player of the Year. He led Auburn to both SEC Championships and BCS National Championship wins in his first and only season with the team.
Cam Newton was drafted 1st overall in the 2011 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers where he's played all nine seasons of his NFL career. Cam became an instant impact player winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2011. In 2015, Cam Newton led the Panthers to Super Bowl 50, won NFL MVP honors, and Offensive Player of the Year which allowed him to cash in on a huge payday. After earning $22 million from his initial contract, Newton signed a five-year, $103 million contract extension with the Panthers in 2015. Thus far, he's earned $82.7 million of his contract money. Lately, Cam has been struggling with health issues and the Panthers have been riding with Kyle Allen as the starting QB. It could possibly be an end of an era with Cam Newton leading the Panthers.
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.