These Actors Regret Going To Such Extremes For A Role

Despite their massive fame and fortunes, for Hollywood actors and actresses, life isn’t always an easy road. To really get into character for a role, they sometimes must do something extreme. Often times, it involves manipulating their look using extreme measures such as starvation diets, rapid weight gain, body mutilation, and much more. Other times, they must plant themselves into the situation their character would be living in, no matter how terrible it may be. These actors took it to the most extreme levels to play a role in a movie.

Hilary won an Oscar for her role in this movie, and it’s no wonder, considering the preparation she did beforehand! She went out in public dressed as a man for months before filming started, even bandaging her breasts and lowering her voice, calling herself by the name James. She says that at the time she was not famous, so she could get away with it, whereas nowadays people would notice right away, making that kind of preparation impossible.

While many actresses want to look younger for their roles in fantastic films, Tilda Swinton did quite the opposite, playing an elderly woman with more than 30 years added to her appearance. She did this will the help of eleven prosthetics, as well as fake liver spots! She looks sensational as the aristocratic old lady in the movie, and her acting style fits the part really well, despite her being so many years younger.

Both Natalie Portman and her co-star Mila Kunis lost a dramatic amount of weight for their roles in Black Swan, and as neither of them was exactly large to start with, it definitely raised eyebrows. But for her commitment to the role, Natalie ended up walking away with an Oscar, and she seemed to lose the weight sensibly, without any health problems as a result. It is rumored she lost 20 lbs for the part. A big percentage for her size.

The transformation of Meryl Streep from gorgeous Hollywood superstar into cackling evil witch took some serious time, and some crazy steps on the part of hair and make up! One thing you might not realize is that Meryl’s blue hair in the movie was actually dyed with fabric dye, like what you would use to make a costume, or a pair of curtains! It looks incredible, and they did an awesome job, both making her look younger and older.

Some people have said in the past that Tom Cruise is kind of type cast, with his Mission Impossible style roles. That all ends here, with his incredible part as Les Grossman, which has him looking almost unrecognizable. Apparently, he created the role himself, complete with all the gross extras. This was his first comedic role, and got him a Golden Globe nomination for all that time in the make up chair.

What is it with this movie, did they only choose method actors or something? Matthew McConaughey went to extreme lengths to lose the weight he needed to in order to play a convincing role as Ron Woodruff. At 6 feet tall, he still made it down to 133 lbs. The way he did it? Restricting himself to just one diet coke, egg whites and a small piece of chicken each day. Rather him than me, that’s what I say!

Elle Fanning isn’t the most famous name on our list, but the actress has already proved that she will go above and beyond to play the perfect part. In Three Generations her role is as a transgender male, and she has had a serious hair cut to fit the part. She was seen in Brooklyn during filming with her male clothes, and dyed and cropped hairstyle. And the movie looks set to be a hit with the critics too!

Daniel Day Lewis has always said that he likes getting into the heads of the characters he plays. But for his Oscar winning role in My Left Foot, he went further than your average actor would. He went to spend time with disabled patients, and acted as disabled, even when they were not filming. The crew had to carry him around from place to place, and spoon-feed him when he needed to eat. Now that’s commitment to a role.

Even though Vincent was not already a huge star when he got the part in Full Metal Jacket, he still agreed to a crazy transformation for his part, putting on 70 lbs! Seeing as he was a slim 210 lbs to start with, this led to some health issues, namely a knee injury. At least Full Metal Jacket was a huge success, and D’Onofrio has had career success since then. When Kubrick asks you to make some changes, you do it!

Sometimes a movie just isn’t worth the amount of effort an actor puts into it. For Alex Cross, Matthew Fox lost 40 lbs and then turned his body into a work out machine to get the look of a crazy psychopath, and although it worked, the movie has hardly become a cult classic. Especially considering his fluctuating weight in the media, this dramatic change caught the eye of the press, and the public too.

Tom Hanks is not a stranger to changing his body for a role, and if you remember Castaway, you’ll have seen him all skin and bones playing a man deserted on an island and forgotten. But long before then, he also lost a tremendous amount of weight to play an AIDS victim in Philadelphia. He lost 50 lbs for the role, but the hard work paid off. He won an Oscar, raised awareness about gay rights, and made an iconic movie in the process.

In American Hustle, the incredibly actor who is Christian Bale put on 43lbs to play the main role. This is interesting especially because he is used to losing weight for parts, such as The Fighter and The Machinist. He also needs to be in his best shape to play Batman. For this part, he did the opposite, putting on weight, which did not do him a lot of good. In the process, he ended up with a herniated disk in his back!

Rooney Mara was not the only actress on the shortlist to play the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but she won out all the competition to get the part. It included dying and cutting her hair, and getting some real piercings, in her ears, nipples and eyebrow! While many actresses would have insisted on clip-ons, Mara wanted to really feel what it would be like to get into that character, and so she went above and beyond.

Renee put on 30 lbs to play Bridget Jones, not once, or even twice, but three times! The naturally slim actress is known for being waiflike, so it must have been unnatural for her to put on that amount of weight over a short period, especially over and over again. She has spoken out about her fears that the weight fluctuations are bad for her body, and she certainly doesn’t recommend it! Luckily, Bridget is known worldwide as an incredible comedic character.

 

When you’re asked to play an icon like Bob Dylan, you say yes. Even if you’re Cate Blanchett and you can’t imagine how they are going to pull off the transformation, you say yes, and then ask the questions later. That’s what happened here, and the results were remarkable. Blanchett didn’t have anything permanent done here, simply using a wig, sunglasses, and clever costuming. Well done to the incredible behind the scenes crew!

This one is a bit different, as the dramatic transformation that Mariah Carey did was to lose all the glitz and glam which usually sticks to her like glue! She wore a wig which was a mousy brown, she lost the make up and the incredible fashion, and she even drew on dark tired circles under her eyes! She played the part perfectly, an exhausted, world-weary social worker, and it just wouldn’t have worked without the transformation.

If you’re a fan of Parks and Recreation, you know that Andy was never the slim or muscled guy, but more of a couch potato. He tried to get fit when he wanted to try out for the Police force, but that didn’t last too long! But in real life, when Chris Pratt was asked to work out enough to get his body in tip top shape for Guardians of the Galaxy, he did exactly that, and nailed the role as well as boosted himself to a Hollywood pin up.

Anne Hathaway played the incredible part of Fontine in the new movie version of Les Miserables. She had to lose weight for the role, as well as shave her gorgeous long hair off, which must have been pretty tough to commit to! It was one of her most famous roles, and helped her in her career, as well as being a critically acclaimed success, with special mention of her live performance of I Dreamed a Dream. She even won an Oscar!

Sometimes, a character loses so much weight for a role that they end up looking seriously ill. Jake managed to do that here, with a powerful transformation which helped us see his true desperation in the part of Lou Bloom in Nightcrawler. Gyllenhall is a dedicated actor, always looking for ways to commit to the parts he plays, so this was no different. It was made even more impressive by the recent 30 lbs weight gain he’s managed for Southpaw!

In Courage Under Fire, Matt Damon played the role of a character who was drug addicted, and therefore extremely thin. Even though he had a small part, he threw himself into the preparation, using a special 100 day diet and workout regimen to get a 40 lbs weight loss that he felt he needed to play it believably. Unfortunately, he ended up with severe heart problems, needing to take medication for over a year to fix the trouble he had caused to his adrenal glands. Not worth the risk, Matt!

When 50 Cent was preparing for the role of Deon, he lost 54 lbs! He did this over a nine week period, by changing his diet to a totally liquid one, and spending as much as three hours each day on the treadmill. He looks unrecognisable by the end of this extreme regimen. He believes cancer is a serious topic which should be met with as much perseverance as possible by actors taking on that role. His emaciated before pic shows he took this to heart.

Vivian in the movie Jungle Fever was played by Halle Berry, and Berry went to extreme lengths to get into character. She visited a real life crack den before filming began, to help get some authenticity for the role, and then chose not to shower or bathe for ten whole days while the cast and crew were filming. That must have been fun for co-star Samuel L Jackson, who had to share a screen with her! Pooh!

You might think that the before and after photos here don’t look too different, but the truth is, Jamie Foxx did lose 30 lbs to play the part of Ray Charles here. But more than that, he gave himself panic attacks in his quest for authenticity. By wearing prosthetic eyelids over his real eyes, he was better able to copy the way that bling Ray would move and gesture, but it scared him witless every time he was left on set alone.

This might be the most prepared any actor has been for a role! Shia found out he got the part, and then the very next day joined the U.S National Guard, living on base for a month, and refraining from washing or bathing for four months! He says this is par for the course for many of the men out there, and he even got a tattoo, and had a tooth pulled to help him feel more like he fit in. For months though, that’s gotta be tough.

Leo tried to get as authentic as possible an experience throughout filming, even going as farf as eating raw buffalo meat and doing all the freezing cold river stunts himself. “I certainly don’t eat raw bison liver on a regular basis,” Leo said to the media. “When you see the movie, you’ll see my reaction to it, because [director] Alejandro [González Iñárritu] kept it in. It says it all. It was an instinctive reaction.”

Adrian Brody took his role in The Pianist very seriously, moving out of his home, selling his car, and going to Europe, genuinely starving himself to experience the discomfort. “There is an emptiness that comes with really starving that I hadn’t experienced,” he said. “I couldn’t have acted that without knowing it. I’ve experienced loss, I’ve experienced sadness in my life, but I didn’t know the desperation that comes with hunger.”

According to reports, Heath Ledger was so engrossed in the role of The Joker in Batman that he locked himself in his home for a month before filming, and was only sleeping about two hours every night, only speaking to people as The Joker. “If you tried to communicate with him normally instead of The Joker, he would just ignore you,” one source said. “He would often come to the set to hang out even on his days off, freaking everyone out.”

When Ed Harris was chosen to play Pollock, he said that the only thing he had ever painted before was his house! As this wasn’t enough for him to really feel like he understood the role, he took painting lessons, building himself his own painting studio so that he could imbibe himself in the master’s technique and process. He also lost 30 lbs for the role, so that’s true commitment for you as well.

The Harry Potter co-stars say that even when he wasn’t acting, Ralph Fiennes was scary as Lord Voledmort, and had everyone quaking in their boots! His character in the books and film is iconic because of his see through skin and lack of a nose, as well as the grotesque veins and gnarled appearance. But as they only had two hours in the make up chair each time, the crew decided to do the nose and eyebrow blockers digitally.

This movie isn’t even on our screens yet, and this is the transformation we’re talking about the most. Gary Oldman might seem like a crazy choice for Winston Churchill, (and the actor thinks so too!) but he did an incredible job making it work. He even took a guy out of retirement to make it happen! “I found a guy who I knew, Kazuhiro Tsuji, who was a makeup artist and retired from movies. And so I was lucky enough to lure him back and drag him out of retirement.”

If you’re a fan of Robert De Niro (and who isn’t?) you’ll know that he went to extraordinary lengths to look the part of Travis Bickle when he signed up to play the world famous role in Taxi Driver. Not only did he need to lose a significant amount of weight, thirty five pounds to be exact, but he also got into the part by spending two weeks as an actual New York Cab driver. Now that’s what we call a method actor!

Chris Hemsworth is known for his big muscles and his hunky demeanor – because the son of Odin and the heir to Asgard has to be pretty strong, am I right?! However, things took a different turn in 2015 when Chris was cast in In The Heart of the Sea. To get himself ready to play his shipwrecked character. Chris had to lose a whopping 33 lbs and ate just 500 calories a day.

When it comes to movie transformations, it’s fair to say that it must be easier to gain weight than it is to lose it – and Matt Damon had the privilege when he gained a few pounds for his role in The Informant. Yet, when we say a *few* pounds, we actually mean 30 lbs! Yep, Damon got to eat everything he wanted for a few months before filming, to chunk himself up, which is something we could definitely do.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of the creepiest movies out there and considering its storyline, it’s no surprise that Brad Pitt had to go through a pretty intense transformation. While the production team did use prosthetics and props to make a 5-year-old Brad Pitt look 85 years old (it makes sense in the movie) Brad Pitt still had to lose a few pounds to make it look believable. This transformation still freaks us out.

If you’ve ever seen The Machinist, you’ll know that Christian Bale’s skeletal character makes you dream of Big Macs and cakes. For this role, Bale had to lose a whopping 60 lbs – but it seems this drastic weight loss was actually due to a typo. Awkward. Originally, the script was meant for a 6-foot-tall actor before it was given to Bale. He then told the producers to keep the weight as it was and vowed to lose the weight himself.

Russell Crowe is known for his ripped abs and his strong physique from the likes of Gladiator, but his body dealt with an epic transformation for his role in Body of Lies. Rather than repping his muscles, Crowe was repping a dad body and a new hair color. To get himself ready for the part, Crowe would fill his body with all kinds of junk food, in order to gain 63lbs. As soon as filming ended, Russell hired a nutritionist.

Let’s be honest, Hugh Jackman is the ‘Jack’ of all trades (lol) and can turn his hand to anything. In fact, he’s totally up for changing his body to fit a role – which is exactly what he did when he took on the character of 24601 (Jean Valjean) in the movie production of Les Miserables. Before he started filming, Jackman lost 20 lbs, before he dehydrated and starved his body during 36-hour working days. That doesn’t sound fun.

Yep, it’s another man stranded on an island! Because these guys don’t get McDonald’s or Taco Bell delivered to them in the Pacific Ocean (what a shame) these actors have to lose enough weight to make their starvation convincing. One of the most famous stranded characters is, of course, Tom Hanks in Castaway. This legend had to gain 50lbs to film the earlier scenes of the movie, before taking a year off filming to get himself to this skeletal form.

Charlie Sheen is known for his role in the hugely popular Two and a Half Men (y’know, before he was fired) – and many of us couldn’t imagine him with big muscles and a mullet. Well, it seems as though dreams do come true for some people, as Charlie Sheen had to bulk up his body for the filming of Hot Shots! Part Deux. He might have had more luck with the ladies if he’d had those muscles in TAHM!

You just know that any movie about gladiators, Spartans, and warriors are going to be full of big, hulking men with their abs out all the time – and 300 is one of those movies. Not that we’re complaining, of course. To get himself in shape for his leading role in 300, Gerard Butler had to work out for six hours a day, five days a week, and we’re tired just thinking about all that work. Nevertheless, it paid off!

It’s fair to say that Glenn Close is one of the most incredible actresses of all time – but even she has been shocked by her own acting experience. In 2013, Glenn Close took on the role as the female Albert Nobbs who disguises herself as a man to survive in 19th-Century Dublin. This role meant that Glenn had to be transformed into a man, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, Glenn cried the first time she saw herself as a man!

If you’ve ever seen Chopper, there’s a high chance you didn’t recognize that the leading character was the one, the only…Eric Bana! Yep, this dude took body art, stylish shades, and gold grills to a new level when he transformed himself into Mark ‘Chopper’ Read. It’s believed that Bana had to gain an incredible 30 lbs for the role and spent each morning of filming getting himself tatted up in the makeup chair. You can barely even see the man underneath.

Whether you’ve been a fan since Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch or just a fan of his more recent work, you’ll know that Mark Wahlberg is the kind of actor who is not too big, but not too small. Instead, he’s just right. Yet, he had to push his body to the limits for his role in The Gambler – where we saw a whole different side to the actor. To get ready for the role, Mark lost 60 lbs.

Triage is not the kind of movie you’d want to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon, but it is the kind of psychological thriller that will really make you think. It will also make you consider the epic transformation Colin Farrell had to undergo to take on the leading role. In fact, Colin had to lose a whopping 40 lbs to get himself ready for the role. To do this, he survived on a diet of two tins of tuna a day.  

Benedict Cumberbatch is a firm fan favorite around the world. He’s got a cute accent, a cute face, and a cute physique – but this all changed when he was cast in the blockbuster flop, Zoolander 2. For this role, Benedict shaved off his eyebrows and rocked a sleek, black wig. Although he was meant to play an androgynous model, it’s fair to say that the response was NOT good, and many people even signed a petition to boycott the whole movie. Ouch.

In 2008, actor Tom was cast to play the notorious British criminal, Charles Bronson. The actor stuck to an exercise regime of pushups, situps, pull-ups, and just about any other kind of ‘up’ that would get his body in shape. In just five weeks Tom turned his body into a fighting machine by gaining 43 lbs of muscle – he even got Charles’ approval! Apparently, the actor had been to visit Bronson in jail where he got the all clear.

At 57 years old, Mel Gibson emerged in the hit movie Expendables 3 looking like a changed man. While the actor had lost a lot of weight from working out, he also put on a whopping 15 lbs in muscle as he bulked up like never before. It is reported the star had help from muscle supplements as he has continued to keep his new buff bod. The actor has recently been showing off his new look in Blood Father.

Nothing was going to stop this 61-year-old from ramping up the exercise and getting some bulging biceps. Simmons enlisted the help of Aaron Williamson who over the years has helped train The Rock, Zac Efron, and Jai Courtney. The best bit? Simmons didn’t have to step into any superhuman outfits as he played a regular police officer in the movie! It looks as though this actor wanted to keep on top of the game for this film.

It wasn’t just gaining over 20 lbs of muscle that saw Edward undergo a total transformation – the actor also lost all his hair and acquired some rather questionable tattoos in the process. Thankfully, the ink was only temporary, but the training regime was anything but fake. It’s reported that Edward had to stick to a strict upper body regime in the gym for three months that saw him build up more muscle than he once thought possible – oo-er!

We’re not gonna lie; if we were around Channing Tatum, we’d want to hit the gym too. Does that man have one ounce of fat on him?! Anyway, it appears as though Jonah felt the same way we do. Back in 2012 when 21 Jump Street was set to hit cinemas, the actor hit the gym to drop 40 lbs before filming began. It looks as though the actor has been able to keep the weight off – go, Jonah!

There was only one way this actress was willing to get into the role: by undergoing a strict Navy SEAL training regime. This saw that Demi was up at zero four hundred hours to get her training done before heading to the set. The actress would do underwater running, situps in the mud, and one arm pushups in addition to various Navy obstacle courses. To top it all off, Demi Moore even shaved her head for the part. Wowza.

If ever there is dedication to fitting the role, then Michael Fassbender is up there near the top spot. The actor was cast to play a Bobby Sands who led a hunger strike during 1981, so Michael dropped his weight down to just 127 lbs to fit the part. Every day Michael would eat no more than 900 calories, as well as exercise by walking, skipping, and yoga all to achieve his 42 lbs weight loss all by himself.

Ok, she didn’t really put on all this weight, but even donning the fat suit for her role in Shallow Hal was enough of a wake up call to Gwyneth Paltrow that there is serious thin privilege in the world. She says that as soon as she put it on, strangers would avoid her in public. “The first day I tried {the fat suit} on, I was in the Tribeca Grand and I walked through the lobby. It was so sad; it was so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese.”

Jared Leto starred with Michael McConaughey in a movie which would impress crowds and critics, and become an instant classic, Dallas Buyers Club. For his part, he lost 40 lbs, and played the part of a transgender woman, a role which not all actors could pull off with sensitivity and skill. Leto ended up winning an Oscar for his role, so he almost certainly feels his hard work paid off even more than he had hoped for.

Jared Leto is known for playing some pretty intense characters that ALWAYS end up killing other people (why does that always happen?) – so we weren’t too shocked when he was cast as the lead in Chapter 27. What did shock us was his incredible transformation into Mark Chapman. To gain 67 lbs for the role, Leto ate microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil…and if that doesn’t make you want to vomit, we’re not sure what will.

This is another example of an actress who gained weight for a role, in this case 30 lbs. But more than that, her make up on set was so extreme that she is pretty much unrecognizable on camera. The make up artists changed her skin and her hair as well as her features. She says that she knew that it would be difficult to transform her body, but she couldn’t have played the part any other way, she needed to “get into her physical skin.”

John Travolta said that prosthetic make up was “hell on wheels” and he sure used a lot of it for his hilarious part in the movie adaptation of musical Hairspray. As well as his search to find the perfect pair of high heeled shoes, he also made sure that he was totally not recognizable as John Travolta, he wanted to be all Edna. He told the media, “When I came out I didn’t recognize me at all, I didn’t see me in it.”