The word "unrecognisable" often gets bandied about when actors take on roles that require them to adopt a new look – with Tom Cruise the latest big star to have that descriptor applied for his upcoming role in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Digger.
While there are occasions where that word can perhaps be a bit of a stretch, there have also been several cases in Hollywood history where the work of costume, make-up and prosthetics teams – along with, on occasion, extreme diets – have resulted in pretty radical reinventions for big stars.
Often, these reinventions result in huge acclaim from fans and critics amazed at seeing such a different side to performers we know so well, and several big names have ended up winning Oscars for such roles.
We've taken a look at some of the most memorable Hollywood transformations below, from John Hurt's iconic role in David Lynch's The Elephant Man back in 1980, to recent Oscar nominees (and winners) like Jacob Elordi and Amy Madigan from just last year.
Read on for 12 of Hollywood's most extreme movie transformations.
1. Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
Let's start with a very recent one. Jacob Elordi broke out with his role in Netflix romcom trilogy The Kissing Booth and the hit HBO teen drama Euphoria, but in more recent years has emerged as a major upcoming movie star – and possibly even a leading contender for the still-vacant role of James Bond.
In recent years, he's had major roles in Emerald Fennell's films Saltburn and Wuthering Heights, and played Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla, but it's his role as The Creature in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein that so far represents the most radical work of his career – earning him his first Oscar nomination in the process.
Elordi was buried under prosthetics for the role, with make-up artist Mike Hill explaining in an interview with Variety that "his whole face is covered" and that "the only parts that are Jacob are the tip of the nose, the upper lip and his chin".
Underneath all those prosthetics, he gave a terrific physical performance that was picked out by many as one of the clear highlights of the film, with critic James Mottram writing in our own 5-star review that he "truly shows his dexterity in a performance of few words but grand and sometimes heartbreaking gestures".
"There’s something almost balletic about his performance, the way he moves, the way the Creature discovers itself as a sentient being," he added.
2. Amy Madigan – Weapons
While Elordi was nominated for his role in Frankenstein, veteran actor Amy Madigan went one better and won the best supporting actress Oscar for her incredible performance as Aunt Gladys in last year's horror sensation Weapons.
It's not often that a character becomes instantly iconic, but this was certainly the case for the villain in Zach Cregger's film, due to a combination of both Madigan's chilling performance and also the tremendous work of the costume and make-up teams to craft an originally horrifying look.
Whether you were familiar with Madigan's previous work – which included an earlier Oscar nomination for Twice in a Lifetime some four decades prior – or not, no one could see her in this character: only the pure evil of Aunt Gladys. A transformation for the ages!
3. Sebastian Stan – A Different Man
Acting transformations are often all the more impactful when we're so used to seeing an actor as one particular character. And although Sebastian Stan has had roles in several big films throughout his career, for a long time he was known to most fans chiefly as Bucky Barnes in the MCU.
That all changed in 2024 when he took on roles in not one, but two different films that required pretty major transformations. The first of those was as Donald Trump in biographical film The Apprentice – which saw him nominated for an Oscar – but he was even more unrecognisable in the brilliant thriller A Different Man (or at least the opening sections of it.)
In the film, Stan played a character with neurofibromatosis – the same condition that his co-star, Adam Pearson, has in real life – and he wore extensive prosthetics for this role, as you can see in the image above.
While promoting A Different Man, Stan explained how wearing the prosthetics had given him a greater understanding and empathy for what it must be like to live with neurofibromatosis, and his performance won him significant praise, including award wins at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Golden Globes.
4. Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Jessica Chastain has had many acclaimed roles in her career so far, but it was for this biographical film about real-life televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker that she won her Oscar.
It's undoubtedly the biggest physical transformation she's taken on for a role, with the star wearing heavy silicone prosthetics and cosmetics that reportedly took between 4 and 7 hours to apply in three different stages.
"This was a learning curve for Jessica as she had never worn extensive prosthetics," prosthetic makeup designer Justin Raleigh explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"I tried to accommodate and make it as painless as possible. It was a daunting task pushing for a level of perfection and seamlessness."
Clearly, it did the job – helping Chastain on her way to eventual Oscar glory.
5. Tilda Swinton – Suspiria
The history of cinema is full of examples of actors playing multiple roles in the same film – from Alec Guinness to Peter Sellers to Eddie Murphy.
But none of those stars were ever quite so radically altered for one of their roles as Tilda Swinton was when she appeared in Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake of Dario Argento's giallo classic Suspiria.
Swinton played three roles in the film, but it was the part of psychotherapist Josef Klemperer (pictured above) that Swinton was most unrecognisable. She was even credited under the fictional name of Lutz Ebersdorf in the official credits, with Guadagnino initially playfully denying that it was really Swinton in the role.
When the film premiered at Venice Film Festival, Swinton read a letter at a press conference which she claimed to be from Ebersdorf. It read: "I am a private individual who prefers to remain private... Though I strongly suspect Suspiria will be the only film I ever appear in, I like the work, and I do not mind getting up very early."
Some time later, she told The New York Times that Dr Klemperer was played by Lutz Ebersdorf, and Ebersdorf was played by her. She added that she took on the role 'for the sheer sake of fun above all' and added: "The intention was never to fool anybody. The genius of [makeup artist] Mark Coulier notwithstanding, it was always our design that there would be something unresolved about the identity of the performance of Klemperer."
6. Sydney Sweeney – Christy
Sweeney has become one of the most-talked-about actors – and people – on the planet in the last few years, and while it would have been easy for her to fall into typecast roles, she's shown an impressive degree of versatility in the projects she has chosen to take on.
Perhaps the most notable example of this is the biopic Christy, in which she played the trailblazing female boxer Christy Martin – a role that saw her gaining 14kg after extensive boxing and weightlifting training.
That training, coupled with a wig and styling choices, meant she certainly looked a great deal different in the part than her most notable role as Cassie in Euphoria.
In our review of the film, we noted that Sweeney delivered a "powerhouse performance" and added that she "pours her heart into this transformation".
It's a promising sign of what Sweeney can be capable of as an actor if she continues to choose interesting and challenging roles, with her lead part in the excellent 2023 film Reality another example that proves her range.
7. John Hurt – The Elephant Man
Going back a bit further, the always brilliant John Hurt turned in one of the finest performances of his legendary career as Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's tender, empathetic portrait of the disfigured Victorian man who was cruelly nicknamed The Elephant Man.
Fascinatingly, the prosthetics used for the film were based on body casts of the real Joseph Merrick, which had been made in 1890 and preserved for 90 years in the Royal London Hospital's private museum.
In fact, the prosthetics were so impressive that they played a huge role in persuading the Academy to create the best makeup award for the following year.
Hurt initially wasn't so keen on the extensive process of having the makeup applied – which took seven to eight hours – with The Telegraph reporting that after his first experience he called his girlfriend and said: "I think they have finally managed to make me hate acting."
8. Glenn Close – Hook
While most of the roles above have been focused on rather serious roles, there are also plenty of occasions in which actors have undergone radical transformations for more comedic and silly purposes.
One such example is Glenn Close's small but memorable role as a member of the pirate crew in Steven Spielberg's Hook – a film which was of course led by another man who was no stranger to a cross-dressing transformation, Robin Williams.
The role is nothing more than a cameo, but it's great fun to see the revered actor have a bit of fun as a bearded pirate – and even the crew were reportedly fooled by the transformation.
"I mean, the script girl tried to hit on me," she said during a 2025 appearance on The Today Show.
9. Nicole Kidman – The Hours
Nicole Kidman's turn as Virginia Woolf in this acclaimed film from Stephen Daldry is a classic example of how having even one feature changed can completely alter an actor's appearance.
While not every critic agreed on the effectiveness of the star's prosthetic nose – which attracted its fair share of criticism – Kidman went on to win the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of the legendary writer.
Speaking about the nose earlier this year, the actress told Variety: "My profile is very distinct, and it needed to be different. I have a very particular nose."
She added: "I like when I’m able to change up my appearance, as someone trained to be a character actor. Some people are employed to look and be exactly themselves. I’ve been trained as a character actor, so therefore when I’m working, I’m not here to be Nicole.
"If that means changing my physical appearance? Of course. You have to walk differently, breathe differently, talk differently. The timbre of your voice has to change. All of the internal mechanisms affect the external."
10. Christian Bale – The Machinist
Christian Bale is a performer who has often gone to extreme ends to alter his appearance, and there's a fair few of his roles which could belong on this list, from Dicky Eklund in The Fighter to Dick Cheney in Vice.
Undoubtedly the most radical of all, however, was his leading turn in the 2004 psychological thriller The Machinist, which saw him lose 28kg in preparation to play a character who had been unable to sleep for an entire year.
Bale dieted for four months ahead of production, with his former assistant having explained that this consisted of "water, an apple and one cup of coffee per day, with the occasional whiskey".
He actually wanted to go even further and lose more weight, but the filmmakers advised him against doing so due to health concerns – and even as it is, some people have criticised the extreme lengths he went to.
Still, his performance attracted much praise, and our own Radio Times review remarks that: "The most astonishing thing about this bleak, underplayed psychological thriller is Christian Bale’s incredible physical transformation."
11. Brendan Fraser – The Whale
At the other end of the spectrum entirely, Brendan Fraser won an Oscar – completing a much-hailed career comeback – for playing a morbidly obese man in this drama from Darren Aronofsky.
Unlike Bale, Fraser didn't adjust his diet to alter his own body weight, but instead underwent a four-hour process each day that saw him fitted with prosthetics that weighed up to 140kg.
In an interview with Variety, he also detailed how he worked with the Obesity Action Coalition ahead of filming, while a dance instructor helped him to determine how his character would move with excess weight.
“They let me know what their diet was and how obesity had affected their lives in terms of their relationships with loved ones,” he said of his work with the aforementioned coalition.
"It was heartbreaking, because very often these people were mocked and made to feel awful about themselves. Vindictive speech is painful. And it does damage because it feeds into the cycle of overeating. I just left those conversations thinking, 'Hey, this is not your fault. This is an illness. This is an addiction.''"
12. Charlize Theron – Monster
As has been made clear by this list, impressive physical transformations can often help actors on their way to winning Oscars – and Charlize Theron is another who claimed Academy gold for a performance that saw her appearance radically altered.
In Patty Jenkins's 2003 drama, Theron put on 14kg for the role of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, as well as shaving her eyebrows and wearing prosthetic teeth. It's one of those cases where the word "unrecognisable" probably isn't too much of an exaggeration.
Still, that transformation was just one part of a performance that was almost universally regarded as superb. In our own review, we note that her turn "goes beyond the weight-gain and dental prosthetics, finding both compassion and coldness in Wuornos’s descent into homicidal mania".
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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