11 Amazing Bodies of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Stars

The It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia stars aren't just funny; they're grounded. From Charlie Day's newfound confidence to Rob McElhenney's transformational weight loss journey, each blurb here delves into the unique approaches these beloved actors take towards their health and fitness. Learn about Glenn Howerton's intermittent fasting, Danny DeVito's unconventional pre-show routine, and Kaitlin Olson's perspective on playing multifaceted characters. Josh Groban, too!

1. Charlie Day

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Charlie Day plays the lead role of Charlie Kelly. He says to Backstage.com that creating the show has given him more confidence in his acting career. “It was ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ that gave me the confidence to say, OK, well, I don’t always have to be making something just [to have a project] to act in. I can make something for the thing itself to be unique and worthy of people’s time.”

2. Rob McElhenney

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Rob McElhenney plays Mac on the show. He notably lost a lot of weight, and shared his secrets with The Wrap. “As I started off I was doing it with chicken breast and rice and vegetables,” McElhenney said. “But when you’re four months in it and you have to muscle down 1,000 calories for the third time or fourth time in a day and you have to either eat three chicken breasts, two cups of rice and two cups of vegetables — or one Big Mac — you start to see the Big Mac and realize it’s a lot easier to get down … And then every once in a while I would eat three donuts. And every day one of my meals was a high-calorie protein shake.”

3. Glenn Howerton

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Glenn Howerton, who plays Dennis Reynolds, tells Men’s Health that he intermittent fasts. "That's the main staple of my diet," he says. "I read somewhere that you're not supposed to drink coffee first thing, which was torture for me, so now what I do is I start with a big glass of water, maybe some supplements, and then after I've been awake for about an hour and half, two hours, then I get my coffee."

4. Danny DeVito

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Danny DeVito plays Frank Reynolds on the show. He revealed his unique pre-show exercise to GQ. “I have a trampoline. I don't know if you can see it, over there. I start every night with it to get myself going. I guess you would call it exercise, but it's like getting ready to go out.”

5. Kaitlin Olson

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Kaitlin Olson plays Dee Reynolds on the show. She talked about what she enjoys about the role, and her other roles, to The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m really attracted to playing broken people. Mickey was very scrappy and self-sufficient; for Dee, [life is] just a giant competition. Neither of them had the little-girl quality D.J. has. I thought it was a nice opportunity to play something different and to have actual emotion. There’s a relationship there, and it’s one of the driving forces behind the whole season, because D.J. is a bit in the [comedy special] that Deborah’s doing. It’s nice to play a comedic character that also has some broken, raw emotion.”

6. Mary Elizabeth Ellis

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Mary Elizabeth Ellis plays The Waitress on the show. She tells Marie Claire that she wants to have more women involved in the television creating process. “I think having women behind the cameras is exciting—whether it's as a director or a writer or a producer—because it does feel like we're in the middle of this awakening of realizing that it's important for women to have a voice. But I also think it's still easy for us—as women, as writers and as directors and producers—to let it fall into the same patterns. Like, ‘and then the woman brings in the food, because the woman's the one who makes food.’ It's easy for that to happen, because that's what we've always known. We all have to hold each other accountable and point that behavior out to each other in a kind way. I guess what I'm saying is just having women behind the scenes isn't enough, we also have to be aware of what we're saying about ourselves.”

7. Artemis Pebdani

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Artemis Pebdani plays Artemis on the show. She talked about dealing with racism and cutting people out to The Daily Beast. “Being an Iranian kid in the 1980s, well, that wasn’t the easiest. I’m fair complexioned, so it would have been easier if I had just kept my mouth shut about being Iranian, but I didn’t, so I received my share of ‘antagonism’ at an early age. Now I am older, and I mostly get to choose who I am surrounded by, and I choose not-bigots.”

8. Travis Schuldt

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Travis Schuldt plays Ben Smith on the show. He tells Digital Journal that he took on a new hobby during the pandemic. “I started up a garden, which is very fun. We grow cucumbers, cantaloupes, and tomatoes. I joke with a friend of mine and I tell him that ‘I grew up in Kansas and I left Kansas to go to California and I ended up becoming a farmer in California.”

9. Brittany Daniel

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Brittany Daniel plays Carmen on the show. She talked about the process of getting in shape for her wedding in this blog post. “To commit myself to getting stronger, I wanted to create a workout program for myself that was succinct and efficient, so I enlisted my friend and Hollywood trainer extraordinaire, Jeanette Jenkins to help me out. My faithful workout partner Cyn came along for the training sessions, and we made sure they were all only 30 minutes so that she and I would have no excuses to ditch our workouts for lack of time. Jeanette designed each workout with high interval training and super sets. That way, we were able to keep our heart rate up, and burn the most calories in a short time span. The results were amazing!”

10. Jimmi Simpson

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Jimmi Simpson plays Liam McPoyle on the show. He revealed in an interview with The Imagista that he wants to learn from other actors. “The way I run my life, I enjoy surrounding myself with people who know more than me. I have been blessed to be surrounded by a lot of those people, I just love to absorb that. As far as artistic idols, when I was in college considering going after this as a career, there really were not dudes like me doing something that was interesting to me. However, when I saw Richard Burton’s work that was pretty profound for me because he was speaking to me in his performance in ways that no actor ever had with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe, with footage of his contemporary Hamlet and the movie Becket. I had never seen an everyman just knock my dick in the dirt with their performance. He kind of reinvented what it was like to be a man and I bought what he was selling. Watching him made me realize that maybe I had something to say because I identified with what he was saying.”

11. Josh Groban

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Josh Groban has made cameos as himself on the show. He talked about his wellness secrets with GQ. “Now that it's getting warmer, what I'm trying to do is be good to my body in ways that aren't necessarily, like, lifting or going to the gym. I'm trying to be good to myself and good to my body right now outside of the theater with things like, biking a lot, or taking long walks, or, playing and doing stuff in the park. Getting exercise in ways that allow me to get a little bit of vitamin D and, and let me see the world outside the stage door. At some point, I’ll get back into the gym.”