published on July 12, 2024 in blog

35 Craziest Transformations Actors Made for Movie Roles

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1

Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis Black Swan transformation

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For her role as a ballerina in 2010's Black Swan, Mila Kunis had to drop a lot of weight. In an interview with Howard Stern, the actress revealed, "I'm not promoting this at all—but I used to be a smoker, and so I smoked a lot of cigarettes and I ate a limited amount of calories." She continued, "Twelve hundred calories and I smoked … I don't advocate this at all. It was awful."

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2

Jennifer Aniston

In 2014's Cake, Jennifer Aniston played a woman living with chronic pain. At a screening of the film, Aniston revealed, per Us Weekly, "I basically just didn't work out for two-and-a-half months. I stopped working out and I stopped being as careful about my diet as I normally am. I was still healthy, but I'd allow more." She also went on camera without makeup to help get into character.

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3

Christian Bale

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For 2018's Vice, Christian Bale transformed himself into former Vice President Dick Cheney. Of his dramatic appearance in the movie, Bale revealed (via Us Weekly), "I had more fun gaining the weight than losing it!" As for the technique he used to pack on the pounds, the actor told Variety, "I'm just eating a lot of pies so far."

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4

Christian Bale (Again)

Long before his Vice weight gain, Bale made headlines for his dramatic weight loss in 2004's The Machinist. In 2018, Bale told The Guardian, "It's an amazing experience doing that. When you're so skinny that you can hardly walk up a flight of stairs ... you're, like, this being of pure thought. It's like you've abandoned your body."

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5

Joaquin Phoenix

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Rooney Mara's fiancé has been a darling of awards season 2020, thanks to his role in the DC Comics movie Joker. To play Batman's nemesis, Joaquin Phoenix underwent a drastic transformation, which involved losing 52 pounds. Of his extreme weight loss, Phoenix told The Hollywood Reporter (via Men's Health), "It turns out that affects your psychology. ... You start to go mad." Phoenix also told Access Hollywood that he prepared for the role safely. "It's something I've done before and you work with a doctor regimented and overseen and safe," he revealed.

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6

Matthew McConaughey

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For his Oscar-winning role in 2013's Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey drastically changed his appearance to play a man diagnosed with HIV and given a month to live. Speaking to the BBC, McConaughey said of his 47-pound weight loss, "I met with a nutritionist. I gave myself four months to lose the weight. I had my programmed meals." The actor also "chewed a lot of ice."

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7

Tom Hardy

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In the 2009 biopic Bronson, Tom Hardy turned himself into notorious prisoner Charles Bronson. The actor told AskMen, "To achieve dense muscle, you need a specific kind of training. Also, to 'become' Charlie Bronson I had to quickly put a lot of weight quickly on my forearms, chest and neck. By the time I'd finished, my legs looked like those of a stork in comparison to the top half of my body."

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8

Chris Hemsworth

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The Australian actor seriously bulked up to play Marvel superhero Thor. Chris Hemsworth revealed to TRAIN magazine, "We train six days a week for about an hour, but never much over an hour, but we go hard during that time frame. I do train when I'm not playing Thor, but I'm less bulky because I eat less and my workouts are more rounded and less centered around being muscular. I usually put on about 20lb of muscle to play Thor."

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9

Chris Pratt

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For Parks and Recreation and Everwood fans, Chris Pratt's glow-up was nothing short of legendary. To take on action hero roles in Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, Pratt toned up his physique and completely switched up his diet. Of dropping 60 pounds, he told Men's Health, "When I was fat and unhappy, the only moments of respite I got were when I was eating. ... I felt great shovelling food down my neck and totally negative in-between. Now mealtimes are sometimes lame, because that's the way it can be when you're eating healthily. But all the time between meals, I feel great."

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10

Natalie Portman

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For 2010's Black Swan, Natalie Portman had to look like a ballet dancer. The actress, who won an Academy Award for her performance, lost 20 pounds for the part and told The Independent, "There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die."

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11

Anne Hathaway

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To play Fantine in Les Miserables, for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Anne Hathaway had to drop 25 pounds. Of the experience, she told People, "I'd lost an unhealthy amount of weight in two weeks. ... I didn't know anything about nutrition. I taxed my body, and my brain bore the brunt of it for a while. I just felt very anxious and very lost at that time."

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12

Tom Hanks

In the 2000 movie Castaway, Tom Hanks's character found himself stranded on a desert island. As a result, the actor had to lose a lot of weight, dropping from 225 pounds to 170. He told Entertainment Weekly, "The only thing I did not give up was coffee. ... Nope, wasn't about to!" Losing the weight took a year, which was director Robert Zemeckis's idea. Hanks explained that the director said, "If we really wanted to do this right, we'd make the first half of this movie, then take a year off and make the second half!"

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13

Rooney Mara

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Rooney Mara majorly changed her style to play Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Of looking like a totally different person, Mara told Entertainment Weekly, "There were certainly things I was scared to do, but I never thought I wasn't up for the challenge." According to Mara, the most difficult thing to adjust to was her bleached eyebrows. "I just had to process, okay, this is what you look like now."

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14

Charlize Theron

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For her role in 2018's Tully, Charlize Theron gained around 50 pounds. As she told Entertainment Tonight, "The first three weeks are always fun because you're just like a kid in a candy store. So it was fun to go and have breakfast at In-N-Out and have two milkshakes. And then after three weeks, it's not fun anymore. Like, all of a sudden you're just done eating that amount and then it becomes a job. I remember having to set my alarm in the middle of the night in order to just maintain [the weight]. I would literally wake up at two in the morning and I'd have a cup of cold macaroni and cheese just next to me. I would wake up and I would just eat it ... I would just, like, shove it in my throat. It's hard to maintain that weight."

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15

Charlize Theron (Again)

For 2003's Monster, Charlize Theron gained around 30 pounds, and won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos. She told The Baltimore Sun in 2004, "There were no prosthetics except a cellophane-thin strip of plastic on my eyelids and a cream on my face to give me a sun-damaged look. But that's my own hair; there were no wigs. This wasn't a game we were playing called, 'Let's try to make Charlize look ugly.' I didn't want it to look like a caricature. I just wanted it to look like Aileen."

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16

Charlize Theron (Yet Again)

Of her transformation into Megyn Kelly in 2019's Bombshell, Charlize Theron told Entertainment Weekly, "The prosthetics on the eyes were [especially] tricky." But there were some drawbacks to the extensive makeup: "We were all cracking up because only one eye would blink." The actress worked with makeup artist Kazu Hiro to create Kelly's unmistakable appearance.

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17

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman changed her appearance in a big way to portray Virginia Woolf in 2002's The Hours, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar. According to SF Gate, Kidman's makeup and prosthetics took three hours to apply each day while filming. Of wearing a fake nose, she told The Los Angeles Times, "[I] try to create who she is through just being her rather than trying to change physically, even though I wore the nose, even though all of those things. ... They were the next layer, whereas the first thing was inside."

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18

Hilary Swank

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Hilary Swank won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in 2004's Million Dollar Baby, in which she played a professional boxer. She told Emanuel Levy in 2005, "I trained like four to five hours every day, six days a week, for three months. I was asked to gain 10 pounds of muscles, and I ended up gaining 19 pounds of muscle. But that's my job as an actor. If I'm supposed to play a boxer, I'm going to do the best I can to look like a boxer. I was eating 210 grams of protein a day, and that entailed eating every hour. I was drinking egg whites, flax oil, protein shakes."

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19

Zac Efron

Let's be real: Zac Efron always looks great. Bur for his role in 2017's Baywatch, the High School Musical star took his training to the next level. He told Emanuel Levy, "I wanted to be accurate and to look like an Olympic athlete and so I started training like one. I trained my ass off. It was really, really hard. I still continue to train but I'm not doing two or three a day workouts anymore. And I'm not eating exorbitant amounts of food in pre-packaged boxes. I'm on a break for a while."

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20

Jake Gyllenhaal

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For the 2014 movie Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal dropped around 30 pounds for his role as a crime scene videographer. Of his gaunt appearance in the film, the actor told Variety, "I would try to eat as few calories as possible. ... I knew if I was hungry that I was in the right spot. Physically, it showed itself, but chemically and mentally, I think it was even a more fascinating journey. It became a struggle for me."

Amy Mackelden is a freelance writer, editor, and disability activist. Her bylines include Harper's BAZAAR, Nicki Swift, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Independent, Bustle, Healthline, and HelloGiggles. She co-edited The Emma Press Anthology of Illness, and previously spent all of her money on Kylie Cosmetics.

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