Bionic Woman star Michelle Ryan may be blessed with robotically enhanced strength and speed onscreen, but in real life her amazingly body is the result of sheer hard work.
Michelle was spotted honing her size 12 frame at a Vancouver gym yesterday with a vigorous workout which included pumping weights, boxing and sweating it out on the cross-trainer.
The actress has every reason to be in great shape. She does all her own stunts - there are complicated fight scenes and terrifying jumps in every episode - and is often on set for more than 12 hours a day.
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Muscle power: Michelle Ryan working out at a Vancover gym yesterday
Built for speed: the actress training for her demanding role as the Bionic Woman
Creator David Eick says: "Michelle is so committed that every day from morning to night she was in one class or another.
"Michelle was in Dojo (a Japanese-style martial arts training hall) taking Krav Maga, which is like dirty street fighting."
Thanks to that steely determination, the former EastEnders star has just achieved the impossible, managing to ditch the image of dowdy Albert Square market trader Zoe Slater to become a action heroine in one of the biggest new shows on American TV.
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Strong woman: Michelle Ryan is now a prime time U.S. star
Against all expectations, and to the certain envy of her former co-stars, the 23-year-old Londoner landed the lead role in a £25million remake of Seventies series The Bionic Woman for the NBC network.
Its opening episode last week pulled in 14million viewers, the best ratings the channel has seen for a new Wednesday-night show since The West Wing in 1999.
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US Hit: Bionic Woman is already making waves
Michelle beat scores of other actresses, including Friends star Jennifer Aniston, to the role of Jaime Sommers, a barmaid who, after nearly dying in a car accident, is given cybernetic body parts that leave her with superhuman strength, hearing, vision and speed.
Rights to the series were quickly snapped up by ITV2, which plans to show the series in Britain in the New Year.
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Superstar: Michelle has blossomed into a 23-year-old woman
It is a phenomenal achievement for an actress who became synonymous with her troubled character over her five-year career in the soap she joined at the age of just 15.
But Michelle is keen to downplay her new success, saying simply: "It does feel like a fresh start. I'm so well-known in England for playing Zoe, who was quite a soft, even slightly weak, character. So I love the fact that I'll be known as a very strong, feisty character, and I think it's a nice progression for me."
The secret behind Michelle Ryan's buff Bionic body | the Daily Mail
It's so weird she is famous in the USA now!
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