See the Most Unrecognizable Celebrity Transformations from a Role, from Dwayne Johnson to Nicolas Cage

Dwayne Johnson in ‘The Smashing Machine’

For his upcoming film, The Smashing Machine, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson revealed director Benny Safdie asked him to get “bigger” and “puffier” to play in order to portray former wrestler and mixed martial artist Mark Kerr.

“It was very specific training because if you think about it, Mark, as an amateur wrestler, there’s movements that he would do constantly all day that would just build certain fast-twitch muscles,” Johnson said during an August 2025 press conference for the film, per E! News.

“You know, I’m in my fifth level of life. [But] when Benny Safdie says, ‘Hey, I need you to … ,’ [I go], ‘Okay, I’ll try it.’

Colin Farrell in ‘The Penguin’

Ever handsome and always charming, Colin Farrell was unrecognizable when he traded in his good looks for the startling appearance of Oz Cobb, aka The Penguin, in HBO Max’s series of the same name.

And while fans found the transformation impressive, Farrell was a bit taken aback by the look.

“Do you ever see cats looking at themselves in the mirror? How they recoil and they just don’t know [it’s them]?” he said, during a red carpet chat with PEOPLE and other outlets back in Sept. 2024. “It was strange.”

He continued, “It’s not like I ever fully lost sense of myself, but it was a very powerful thing to know yourself a certain way for 45 years and to see a reflection. And it also kind of made me aware of how much I identified with how I look.”

But, like the pro he is, Farrell used the dissonance to aid him in the role. “As soon as I looked in the mirror and none of me was there, then, I had more of a blank slate than I usually have [going]  to work,” he revealed.

“It was amazing. It was really, really powerful. It was something very powerful and very kind of hypnotic to the experience.”

Sydney Sweeney in ‘Christy’

The Rock isn’t the only actor who made gains to portray an athlete. In June, Sydney Sweeney opened up about the 30 lbs. she took on for her role as former professional boxer Christy Martin.

“I loved it. I came onboard to play Christy, and I had about three and a half months of training,” she told W Magazine. “I started eating. I weight-trained in the morning for an hour, kickboxed midday for about two hours, and then weight-trained again at night for an hour.”

“My body was completely different,” she said, adding, “But it was amazing: I was so strong, like crazy strong.

Nicolas Cage in ‘Madden’

Though Madden — the upcoming biopic in which Nicolas Cage will play legendary NFL coach and commentator John Madden — is still filming, photos of the actor walking while in character have surfaced, and needless to say, we can’t wait for this one to hit the screens to see that transformation in motion.

Zac Efron in ‘The Iron Claw’

Always in shape, Zac Efron had to get extra fit for his portrayal of Kevin Von Erich in 2023’s The Iron Claw. “I allowed it to take over my life. That became my primary goal,” he told Extra TV. “[My life] was kind of centered around achieving that aesthetic. It was fun to put everything else to the side for a little while.”

50 Cent in ‘Things Fall Apart’

Sure, he’s a world-renowned hitmaker, but when 50 Cent commits to a role, he goes all out. The rapper stunned fans with his appearance back in 2010 when he lost 50 lbs. to play Deon in All Things Fall Apart, coming down from 214 to 160.

Angela Bassett in ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It”

If you ask us, Angela Bassett really was robbed of an Oscar for her portrayal of Tina Turner in 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do with It. Not only did she get the singer’s Tennessee accent and dance moves down, but she managed to transform her figure to match Turner’s as well.

“I first met Tina during the rehearsal process of the film. She had come to America in order to lay down the musical tracks for the movie that we would use,” Bassett told the American Film Institute. “I found her spirit just delightful, energetic and encouraging. I was so humbled at the prospect of playing this larger-than-life person.”

Viola Davis in ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’

For her role as the titular Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Viola Davis knew she had to put on some pounds to fully get the essence of the character.

“I tried to gain as much [weight] as I could but [Ma Rainey] was really big, close to 300 pounds,” Davis said during a conversation at the Toronto Film Festival.

“I got close to 200. Ann Roth, the great costume designer, she said, ‘Viola, what body do you want to look like?’ And the body that I loved — once again I grew up with a lot of big women that I thought were the most beautiful women in the world. So for me, it was Aretha Franklin. I wanted that body.”

Christian Bale in ‘The Machinist’

Bale is famous for going above and beyond to get into character, and perhaps his performance in The Machinist is the example that comes to mind first.

To play an emaciated insomniac in The Machinist, Bale underwent one of the most drastic transformations in Hollywood history, whittling his weight down to just 121 lbs.

“Interestingly, I did find that mentally it was very, very calming being that skinny, because you really didn’t have any energy for expending on unnecessary things, so you just kept it simple,” he told MovieWeb of the weight loss. He ate just an apple and a can of tuna a day to lose the weight.

For his role in American Hustle, however, Bale gained 43 lbs., topping out at 228 — a 100-lb. difference from where he was when he filmed The Machinist. “I ate lots of doughnuts, a whole lot of cheeseburgers and whatever I could get my hands on,” he said of his efforts to gain weight. “I literally ate anything that came my way.”

Tom Hardy in ‘Capone’

The Revenant actor said goodbye to his six-pack in order to portray infamous gangster Al Capone in the upcoming biopic.

In addition to the weight gain, a receding hairline as well as layers of makeup effects and an ever-present cigar added to the transformative effect.

The Josh Trank-directed flick chronicles the end of Capone’s life as he battled dementia after spending 10 years in prison for tax evasion.

Renée Zellweger in ‘Judy’

The Bridget Jones’s Diary actress completely transformed for her role as the iconic Judy Garland in 2019’s Judy.

The film follows Garland’s final tour in the winter of 1968 – which she did despite her exhaustion and deteriorating health – up until her death in 1969 at just 47 years old.

Charlize Theron in ‘Bombshell’

This transformation made us (and the rest of the Internet) do a serious double-take: Theron is the spitting image of former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in Bombshell.

The film offered a “revealing look inside the most powerful and controversial media empire of all time; Fox News, and the explosive story of the women who brought down the infamous man [Roger Ailes] who created it.” Theron earned an Oscar nomination for her work.

Margot Robbie in ‘I, Tonya’

The Australian beauty transformed to play disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in this unconventional biopic about the athlete’s fall from grace.

The movie followed Harding’s story from her early skating days to her training for the ’94 Winter Olympics before her ex-husband intervened and tried to sabotage rival skater Kerrigan. The infamous event made headlines for its brutality and tale of rival ice princesses.

In the I, Tonya teaser, Robbie uncannily mimicked Harding’s voice, summarizing Harding’s plight with the public eye.

“America, they want someone to love. But they want someone to hate,” Robbie narrated in an eery imitation of Harding’s voice. “And the haters always say, ‘Tonya, tell the truth!’ There’s no such thing as truth. I mean, it’s bulls—.”

The actress earned an Oscar nomination for her work.

Gary Oldman in ‘Darkest Hour’

Oldman won an Oscar for his chameleon-like transformation into Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.

Becoming the former British prime minister took 200 hours of makeup work, according to Deadline. The sinewy actor also told the outlet he “carried around half my body weight” in prosthetics to look more like the heavier Churchill.

Willem Dafoe in ‘Shadow of the Vampire’

Dafoe went through hours of makeup to transform into the creepy vampire from this clever, fictional reimagining of the making of the horror classic Nosferatu.

“It took a little over three hours to get into the makeup,” Dafoe later told IndieWire. “I usually dress myself on movie sets, but in this case, I had to be dressed, because there were some undergarments, a shoulder piece, very awkward boots, and a very tight waistcoat, so that took a while.”

He added that it took another hour at the end of the day to get cleaned up. Because he was usually the first one on set and the last one to leave, Dafoe said many of his fellow actors never saw him out of character during the entire shoot.

Rooney Mara in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’

Mara was nearly unrecognizable after transforming into her stylistic opposite: punk computer hacker Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Celebrity hairdresser Danilo was brought in to chop off the actress’s normally long, wavy brown locks and dye her remaining hair black, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Her eyebrows were later dyed blonde.

The outlet also reported that she got her nipple pierced for added authenticity, in addition to the other fake tattoos and piercings she had applied.

“I thought, ‘She has it in the book, and she should have it (in the movie),” Mara reportedly told Allure of the piercing. “Because of all the tattoos and the makeup and the piercings, and the physical transformations my body has to go through, it would always feel sort of like I was in costume, even if I was naked.

Mara later admitted her style was never the same after filming the movie. “I used to wear a lot of girlie, frilly things,” she told THR. “Now I buy things that are more comfortable, and more utilitarian, and sort of boyish.”

Ron Perlman in ‘Hellboy’

It took Perlman four hours everyday to become the giant, red demon from the popular comic book series Hellboy, although makeup artist Jake Garber later clarified that the actual time spent applying makeup and prosthetics was more like two-and-a-half hours in total.

“I wanted him to be able to get up, stretch, and have a cup of coffee, maybe a little breakfast so it’s not quite as grueling,” Garber told HowStuffWorks.

If Perlman was unrecognizable in the role, it’s likely because there was very little of his own face and body that weren’t covered in prosthetics. He wore the foam pieces on his chest, on his head with a skull cap and had a full-facial prosthetic that covered everything besides his bottom lip.

As for the character’s unique hairstyle, Garber applied four separate hairpieces including a samurai wig and sideburns. Perlman also wore contact lenses and dentures. Ultimately, Garber joked, the only thing left showing of Perlman were his eyelids.

Nicole Kidman in The Hours

Makeup artists spent three hours a day applying the prosthetic nose that transformed Kidman into novelist Virginia Woolf for her Oscar-winning turn in 2002’s The Hours.

The actress was so unrecognizable in the role, many fans missed her entirely in the trailers. “I did enjoy being anonymous,” she told the San Fransisco Chronicle. “It was fun to be able to go out of my trailer and not have anyone know me.”

Jared Leto in ‘Dallas Buyers Club’

Leto has a history of making dramatic weight transformations for his roles. In the 2007 film Chapter 27, he gained a whopping 67 lbs. to play Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon in 1980.

Six years later, starring alongside Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club, he lost weight, plummeting to 114 lbs. after losing 40 lbs. to play Rayon, a transgender woman living with AIDS. How did he do it? He told The Wrap: “I stopped eating.”

Eddie Murphy in ‘The Nutty Professor’ and ‘Norbit’

Long before Tyler Perry’s Madea, Murphy mastered the art of playing multiple characters in the same film with the help of prosthetics and bodysuits.

Makeup artist Rick Baker won an Oscar for transforming the Saturday Night Live alum into Sherman Klump – and the entire Klump family – in The Nutty Professor.

He first sculpted a mask of the actor’s face before using it to create a latex mold, according to the NY Daily News. He was also outfitted with a fat suit made of polyurethane foam covered in spandex. Latex bladders filled with water were used to make the fat suit jiggle, according to the outlet. Murphy also donned oversized rubber hands.

Charlize Theron in ‘Monster’

Theron earned an Oscar for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in Monster, and underwent dramatic physical changes in order to resemble the real-life serial killer.

In addition to gaining 30 lbs. for the role, the South African beauty had her eyebrows altered, wore prosthetic dentures and even had her skin airbrushed to appear more weathered.

Despite the amazing makeup work, Theron said she hoped audiences would be able to look past the changes. “The greatest thing I can hope for, which is an impossible thing to hope for because so much emphasis has been put on the transformation, but it’s that people can go see it and get past all that,” she told Reuters.