It was no surprise when Matthew McConaughey took home the Best Actor award at the Oscars for his portrayal of Ron Woodroof, the epitome of American masculinity, who contacts HIV in Dallas Buyers Club. For the role McConaughey lost over 50 pounds and looks a shadow of the usual dominating characters he has recently played (Killer Joe, Mud). On this note, it would be fitting to revisit some of the greatest transformations actors and actresses have gone through for a single performance.
Now, there are plenty of performances where the actor is almost unrecognisable due to special effects or incredible artistry and make up, but what this list is looking at, are the performances where a performer totally reinvents themselves on screen physically – you know the face on the screen, you’ve seen them in other films but you have to double take just to recognize them. So, sorry John Hurt, you’re wonderful turn as The Elephant Man just doesn’t qualify.
These physically and emotionally transformative performances required months of preparation, effort and ‘going against the grain’ to achieve some incredible results, creating some of the most memorable and striking screen performances of all time.
10. Cameron Diaz / Being John Malkovich
Straight off the back of There’s Something About Mary, Cameron Diaz was the ultimate girl next door, the perfect American dream idol. She was number one on Hollywood cast lists to be the lead in the next big rom-com, so what a surprise it was to see here appear in Charlie Kauffman and Spike Jonze’s whacky, metaphysical bit of quirk…and appear in it as a kooky, ‘un-cool’ mad woman. With a big frizzy perm replacing her slick blonde streaks, a goofy grin in place of her million dollar sex appeal smile and clunky outfits – this was definitely one of those performances that made you double take at the sight of her.
9. Chiwitel Ejiofor / Kinky Boots
Chiwetel Ejiofor has always been an actor with the most adaptable and fluid acting pallet, from coppers to criminals, laughter to drama he moves through acting key changes as naturally as water through the seasons. We are in the midst of his most critically acclaimed performance as Soloman Northup, nominated for an Oscar and showered with a thousand drops of praise for his face of historical heartbreak and despair – rightly so, he is phenomenal in 12 Years A Slave.
It is another performance that he completely transformed himself for a character that makes this list, when he played the charismatic drag queen looking for new heels in Julian Jarrold’s charming drama Kinky Boots. Both physically from the way he looks and the also more significantly the way he carries himself, it just oozes adapting femininity. It is a terrific performance and one of the many sign posts of range in a great and still developing career for one of the greatest working actors today.
8. Jared Leto / Chapter 27
Even with all the performance plaudits homing in on McConaughey in the lead of Dallas Buyers Club, Jared Leto also puts in an immersive and impressive performance as Rayon, the transgender ‘business partner’ of Ron Woodroof. Leto has always been an actor who totally commits himself to a role, becoming a skeleton as an addict in Requiem for a Dream, but it is a physical transformation at the other end of the scale that makes this list.
Playing John Lennon’s killer Mark Chapman, Leto gained an astonishing 67 pounds for the weighty character. Forcing himself to drink a horrible soup of ice cream, soy sauce and olive oil every night, there is no doubt of his dedication to his art. In fact, his body did take a beating and on set he had to use a wheelchair between shots and Leto has said he has felt his body has never returned to its previous health. It is just a terrible shame that CHAPTER 27 is quiet a mess of a movie and hardly ever watched by anymore.
7. Daniel Day-Lewis / My Left Foot
Daniel Day-Lewis is the epitome of an actor’s determination, the embodiment of method and immersion. When he takes on a role, the role equally takes on his life. For every character he has played, there are always talk of how intense his method preparation was and none more so than the rumours surrounding one of his first of many galaxy size performances, playing Christy Brown, the artist with cerebral palsy in MY LEFT FOOT.
Whispers in cinema mythology mention that Day-Lewis spent months in a wheelchair without moving and even went so far as to break two of his own ribs, to get an idea of the posture of the character he was playing. Whether any of this is true or not, what you see on screen is a remarkable and powerful performance, where the actor we know has almost all but vanished.
6. Heath Ledger / The Dark Knight
So, this list is focused on acting transformations without the use of prosthetics and make up? Then why is the late Heath Ledger making this list with his magnum opus? It is a character in fact that is cake behind a layer of now iconic make up and costume design. Heath Ledger totally made his name disappear in The Dark Knight – there was not a remnant of him as an actor on screen, just a smog of total insanity and theatrical fear – all you saw on screen was the Joker.
5. Charlize Theron / Monster
Charlize Theron’s transformation to play serial killer Aileen Wournos in 2000’s MONSTER has to be one of the most jarringly striking physical changes an actor has gone through. With supermodel perfect looks and a figure that magazines adore, Theron through off her glowing face and became this unpleasant, unkempt and unloved character that riffs the film on reality.
There is no doubt the whole performance is a powerhouse and that it is such a striking change for the actress, but what is more remarkable, is that in this strange Hollywood world where actresses have to be underweight and have to be cut from a certain beauty – that this actress was on screen on the complete other spectrum. Whilst the performance in the film works a treat, it also serves as a reminder, to the sad usual standards of feminine beauty is portrayed in films.
4. Denis Lavant / Holy Motors
One of the most bizarre and surreal movies to come out in the last few years, Leo Caraux’s Holy Motors also has a performance that isn’t just one great actor’s transformation, but one actor’s multiple performances and itself is about transformation as an actor. Lavant is mysteriously driven around in a limo, slipping into different narratives and stories as a host of characters, from a hitman to a father, from a love interest to troll and even some sort of CGI slug creature. Extraordinary stuff which will leave you wondering if you ever saw a single character on screen or was it all make belief in the make belief world of movies.
3. Christian Bale / The Machinist
One a diet of one can of tuna OR one apple a day, for months, Christian Bale took his body weight down to a mere 120 pounds for his role as Trevor Reznik, the paranoid insomniac whose past is a constant twisting burden on his reality. It is an extraordinary visual sight, grotesque and other worldly, seeing a man that thin on screen – the physicality(or lack of) of the role totally dominates the each frame Bale is in.
The movie itself is pretty decent, a fascinating concept and some real meat to be chewed on the bone – but it still is remembered as the Christian Bale weight loss movie – the physical transformation of the performance was so drastic that it has almost stolen the narrative identity of the movie. What’s more unbelievable is that Bale’s next role was playing a beefy, muscle bound Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.
2. Robert De Niro / Raging Bull
Arguably Robert De Niro’s greatest screen performance – playing the rough and talented boxer Jake LaMotta through his hot flame boxing career right to post career as a seedy club owner. De Niro got himself in incredible shape, a true boxers physique – in fact he lived his life as a middleweight boxer in a year preparing for the role. His trainer in this time was also, the real Jake LaMotta, who said De Niro was one of the best boxers he saw in the ring.
Totally drowning himself in research and lifestyle, the rewards are so rich for us on screen – but De Niro doesn’t just transform once for this role, but he becomes something completely different in the final act of the movie, as the older, regretful LaMotta. With a big weighty belly and any remnants of an athlete disappeared, its jaw dropping to see an actor change so much within the same movie – but it’s dedication and commitment like this which is why De Niro will be regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time…no matter how many cheap comedies he does these days.
1. Dustin Hoffman / Midnight Cowboy
Against the wishes of his agents, Dustin Hoffman took on the role of Ratso, the slimy and meek street hustler who befriends Jon Voigt’s tall and handsome Buck in Midnight Cowboy. He had just discovered movie star fame as the teenage heartthrob in The Graduate, so many considered taking on the role of an ugly, slimy character who develops a bond of friendship and maybe more with a tall naïve cowboy in the city, a sure fire way to kill his star. MIDNIGHT COWBOY was a unsuspecting hit, both critically and commercially and Hoffman kept his artistic integrity and in fact raised his star wattage even higher.
