From Dad Bod To Six Pack: Rob McElhenney Has Had Quite The Transformation

Once upon a time, a middle class kid from South Philly moved to Los Angeles where, as a struggling actor, he wrote a show for himself and his buddies that turned into the longest-running live-action comedy series in American television history. No, it's not the plot of an Academy Award-winning movie, although the tale bears some similarity to that of a couple of best buds from Boston who took home an Oscar for "Good Will Hunting."  This is the story of Rob McElhenney and his hit show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."  Described as the anthesis of "Friends," " Sunny" pushes limits, and so does its star who gained a significant amount of weight for Season 7, only to shed and shred a few seasons later. Yes, from dad bod to six-pack, McElhenney has had quite the transformation, but few who know him are surprised. His "Sunny" co-star and executive producer Charlie Day told The New York Times that McElhenney was "the most driven man I've ever met." 

Some people with that much drive might run others over, but McElhenney is a guy who encourages people to come along for the ride."Rob's like a supportive bully, in that he encourages you very aggressively to step outside of your comfort zone," Megan Ganz, who created "Mythic Quest" with McElhenney and Day and is also an executive producer on "Sunny" added. "He believes in you maybe a few feet further than you believe in yourself."

One of three children born to Helena and Bob McElhenney, Rob McElhenney's youth looked like the average American working class childhood — until it didn't. When the future actor was 9 years old, his mother came out as gay and his parents divorced.  As a distraction from the drama, McElhenney became obsessed with television, tuning in weekly to "The Cosby Show" and "Family Ties."  "I grew up watching immense amounts of it," he told The Guardian, "so I'm a student of the form." 

McElhenney's mother would eventually marry her longtime partner Mary Taylor. In a statement to GLAAD (via People), the actor said he saw having two moms as a "pretty great gift." "By the standards of 1984 South Philadelphia, our upbringing was unconventional but my brother, sister and I were able to recognize early on that not every family looked exactly the same or like what we saw on television. Yet we had nothing but love and support and compassion and empathy. And I think that that allowed us to flourish." It may have also given the actor the courage to have his "Sunny" character come out as gay. "When Mac came out of the closet, it got an amazing response from the LBGTQ community that I did not expect," he said in The Guardian. "I didn't realize so many fans of 'Sunny' were not only members of the community, but thought of 'Sunny' as a true advocate."

You wouldn't know it now, but Rob McElhenney was a late bloomer. At the age of 13 he weighed under 90 pounds, and, as he shared in an Instagram post, he didn't hit puberty until he was 17. As much as he loved sports, being an athlete at his all-boy school just wasn't in the cards. However, after appearing in a production of "Blithe Spirit" at the nearby all-girl sister school, he stumbled into what would eventually become a highly successful career.

Unlike his growth spurt, success didn't come overnight for McElhenney, who swears that he wasn't exactly the class clown. "I'm in a text chain with my friends from high school and I'm not even the third funniest person," he told The Guardian in 2020. "It is astonishing to them, having known me for ever, that I'm in this position. I was never the funny guy." After graduation he attended Temple University briefly before moving to New York where he got serious about his craft. "I enrolled in acting classes and really took to it," he told Philadelphia Magazine. After success eluded him in NYC, McElhenney moved to Los Angeles to try his luck, but didn't fare much better. Like many wannabe actors, he worked as a waiter and lived in a converted West Hollywood garage as he went to auditions, took any roles that came his way, and waited patiently for his big break. 

There are no small parts, only small actors. Just ask Rob McElhenney, who took minor roles in major films with mega stars. In fact, his breakout role was in "The Devil's Own" where he had a scene with heavy-hitting lead Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt. If you can't place McElhenney in the film, you're not alone: His scene made the cutting room floor rather than the final edit. "I was cut out of a lot of movies," he told Philadelphia Magazine.  "I played opposite Katie Holmes [in 'The Wonder Boys'], and I was her boyfriend. I got cut out of that, too," he recalled. 

To add insult to injury, McElhenney said he didn't know his scenes were chopped from "The Devil's Own" until he saw it, along with his friends and family, in theaters. "The movie's coming out, and I notice I don't get an invite to the premiere or the friends and family screening," McElhenney said on an appearance of "Hot Ones." "But I'm still just starting out — I'm like 19 or something, 18, I'm thinking, 'Oh, it'll be fine.'" McElhenney, who called the experience "one of the most humiliating and terrible experiences of my life," did go on to appear in "A Civil Action" starring John Travolta and William H. Macy, and then things started to look sunnier for his career. 

Sometimes in life you have to make your own sunshine, and that's just what Rob McElhenney did. Two years into his Los Angeles life as a struggling actor and waiter, he was struck by the idea of creating a show about a group of friends that, unlike the characters in the hit show "Friends," would never be there for each other. Instead, this group would be made up of egocentric actors living in Tinseltown.  "Everybody is narcissistic to a certain extent, but we have governors in our brains and hearts that don't allow us to act that way," he told The Guardian. "What happens if five people who don't have that find each other? You create the confluence of narcissism, evil and sociopathic behaviour that is 'Sunny.'" 

McElhenney teamed up with buddies Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton, shot a pilot on a camcorder, and shopped it around the networks. FX took the bait. "It was absolutely, 100 percent not what I was looking for," John Landgraf, former president of entertainment at FX, told The New York Times."But it was funny. He had a voice." The powers that be at FX instructed the acting hopefuls to recast the female lead, and paid them to shoot a better pilot. They also advised them to change the characters from LA actors to Philly bar owners. The show got off to a shaky start and floundered in the ratings until Danny DeVito was added to the ensemble cast in the second season at the urging of the network. The rest is television history. 

When FX suggested that the female lead in "Sunny"  be recast, things got awkward. The original "Sweet Dee" was Rob McElhenney's then-girlfriend, Jordan Reid. In between shooting the original homemade pilot and FX picking it up, Reid and McElhenney called it quits. Reid was ousted from the show and Kaitlin Olson, a woman McElhenney described in The Guardian as "hands down the funniest woman on television," auditioned and won the role. While they've never played on-screen love interests, McElhenney and Olson struck up a real-deal romance behind the scenes. They began dating during the second season. 

"Literally, the stupidest thing you can do in the entertainment industry is start dating your co-star on a television series that's expected to continue," McElhenney said in a 2015 interview with BuzzFeed. "Potentially, we could've ruined the dynamic of the TV series, but we jumped in anyway. I guess because I started to fall in love with her." 

McElhenney proposed to his co-star with a vintage ring at the beach house of their co-star Danny DeVito, and the couple tied the knot in 2008 at a Malibu vineyard in front of their friends and family. Even though they live and work together, this showbiz couple is still going strong. What's their secret? On an episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" that was hosted by her hubby, Olson shared, "As hard as it is sometimes, just like in any relationship, I will keep showing up and doing my best because I love you so much."

When it comes to pushing limits for his hit show, Rob McElhenney's commitment extended to making himself look totally different for the role. For Season 7, he packed on approximately 50 pounds. That might have seemed like an odd choice for someone who works in an industry that favors a certain body type, but McElhenney said that's exactly why he did it — to go against what he saw as an unrealistic portrayal of sitcom characters getting more glamorous and better looking every season when they reality was that they should be aging. "Even the nerds on 'Big Bang Theory' are getting better looking," he said in an interview with The Wrap. "Their clothes are getting nicer. They're better groomed. It works for them. But this show — it's not like that."

McElhenney, who said he put on the weight by eating roughly 5,000 calories per day, was quick to point out that it was not done as a form of fat shaming, but rather to stay in line with what he originally created the show to reflect. He admitted that as the show grew in popularity, his own vanity started to rear its ugly head, and he didn't like it. "As I noticed that that was kind of inching in, I realized, 'Wait, that is the complete opposite of what we've always strived for,'" he told AV Club in 2011. "I mean, ultimately, hopefully what people get from our show is that we're poking fun at ourselves."

When it comes to raising the two sons he shares with his wife, Kaitlin Olson, Rob McElhenney is wise enough to surround himself with a village of dads he admires, including his own. In a Father's Day Instagram post, the "Sunny" star paid a moving tribute to his dad. "This guy sacrificed everything for us. He gave us love with no conditions. He instilled in us a sense of compassion, discipline and self-respect simply by BEING what he wanted to teach. In turn, being a good father comes easier for me because I had model for the best," he wrote. 

McElhenney's sons, Axel and Leo, are growing up under very different circumstances than their father. For starters, they have not one, but two famous parents and live in a world of privilege that can present unique challenges. McElhenney admitted to Business Insider that he often turns to co-star Danny DeVito and his ex-wife Rhea Pearlman for advice on raising kids. He said that DeVito's approach was simple. "It's just, show up, be there for them, make sure that they know that they're the most important thing in your lives, which they are," he shared. Both McElhenney and Olson are determined to not let their sons grow up with a sense of entitlement. In an interview with Fatherly, McElheney revealed that he has told his sons, "We'll give you opportunities and you'll take them and do with them what you will." 

The entire premise of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" centers around characters who aren't even close to being politically correct, but that's the point. In his 2021 The New York Times profile, McElhenney referred to what he and the rest of the cast do as "satirizing ignorance," but he is not ignorant to the fact that there have been times when the show missed the mark, like episodes where the characters appeared in blackface. But rather than try to pretend these episodes never happened, he takes what he has learned to find the balance between keeping the show's voice and evolving with the times. "We can't retroactively change things," he said. "What we've done is adjust for them." To McElhenney, that adjustment includes adding more women and people of color to the cast. "At its foundation, it's a show about five ignorant, white people, right?" he said of the decision. "Who could better understand how it feels to be in the wake of ignorant white people than people who aren't ignorant white people? Ignorant white men, specifically."

The show has never been afraid to "go there," and that's part of the appeal. "We started out as the anti-sitcom," co-creator and star Charlie Day told The Washington Post. "There's going to be nothing warm and fuzzy about this show, and we're gonna go right for the jugular ... I think there's always going to be an audience for that kind of a show." 

Going to extremes is the norm for the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" crew, but star Rob McElhenney to it to new levels when he went from gaining more than 50 pounds for his role in Season 7 to shredding his body to a point that he looked like an extra from "Magic Mike" for Season 13. That's no coincidence since he used the same trainer that worked with Channing Tatum. He joked in an Instagram post about how "easy" the process was: "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." 

Season 13 marked the first season that McElhenney's character was living as an out gay man, but he said that had nothing to do with the weight loss transformation. Instead, he claimed he did it for a scene that lasted less than 60 seconds and was written to prove the point that, at the end of the day, whether you are ripped or not doesn't matter. As the actor told Decider, "Either way, changing your physical appearance is not gonna make much of a difference."

For someone who had a hard time breaking into the biz, Rob McElhenney has proven to have a Midas touch with his shows. While still riding the astronomical success of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," he launched a second show and proved that lightning can indeed strike twice. Much like "Sunny," "Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet" on AppleTV+ is a comedy filled with dysfunctional characters, only instead of bar owners, they are part of a video game development company. McElhenney admitted to Esquire that at first, he wasn't gung-ho to create a series about an industry he knew very little about. He changed his tune, however, after meeting with a gaming industry executive who, when the actor inquired about his role, answered, "I build worlds."  

Instantly intrigued, McElhenney tapped "Sunny" co-creators Charlie Day and Megan Ganz, and the trio applied their considerable talent to bring the fantasy world of gaming to life. "The idea that this piece of entertainment is consumed on such a massive scale creates a certain amount of ego, but then the lack of notoriety and lack of respect from the general public also creates a real chip on the shoulder," he told Esquire. That struck us as an interesting place to position a show." 

From virtual gaming to soccer games, Rob McElhenney's interests are diverse. He and buddy Ryan Reynolds are the proud owners of Wrexham FC, a once struggling Welsh soccer club that they bought after becoming friends online. The pals' involvement with the club is documented in the ongoing series "Welcome to Wrexham." The show has won awards, continues to rake in fans, and even featured the moment McElhenney and Reynolds met King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

It's no stretch to say McElhenney and Reynolds clicked immediately. "I consider him one of my closest friends, and I didn't even know him three years ago," McElhenney told People in 2023, before adding that he and Olson have grown close to the oh-so glamorous Reynolds and Blake Lively..

The guys have had so much fun being business partners that they entered into another joint venture and purchased the oldest lager brewery in Great Britain, Wrexham Lager Beer Co. "As co-chairmen of Wrexham AFC, we have learned a lot," Reynolds and McElhenney said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press (via ESPN). "The connection between club and community, the intricacies of the offside rule and the occasional need for beer — especially after finance meetings."  On a more serious note, they added, "Wrexham Lager has a 140-year-old recipe and a storied history and we're excited to help write its next chapter."