If an A-list actor has appeared in dozens of films, on magazine covers, and all over
the internet, they're not exactly going to be difficult to identify.
But for some roles, these same actors have had to disappear completely.
Here are the actors who became practically unrecognizable under all that makeup.
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, 2016's The Bad Batch is a seriously crazy movie.
Set in the desert wastelands of a dystopian future, the film features Suki Waterhouse
as a pistol-packing amputee, Jason Momoa as a bodybuilding cannibal, and Keanu Reeves
as a mustachioed cult leader.
So far, so weird, right?
But while these actors are playing roles that are outlandish by any standards, they're still
pretty easy to recognize.
After all, Jason Momoa will always look like Jason Momoa.
But there's one actor in The Bad Batch who looks more like a hobo than a movie star,
thanks to a little grit, grime, and some scraggly facial hair.
Jim Carrey plays a greasy wanderer known as the Hermit, and the only way you'd know it
was him is if you stuck around for the closing credits.
Carrey's skin is the color of bronze and the texture of sun dried leather.
His eyes are often covered by makeshift glasses, his beard is absolutely filthy, and he wears
fake teeth that are gnarled and misshapen.
The man is covered in dirt and sweat, and his matted hair is hanging past his shoulders.
Most importantly, Carrey doesn't say a single word in the entire film.
Carrey's entire career has been built on madcap, over-the-top antics — that usually involve
a whole lot of shouting.
But here, the guy is completely mute, and it's actually that silence that plays more
of a part in keeping Carrey as unrecognizable as any makeup ever could.
Long before Tom Hardy bulked up for Bane and Heath Ledger dolled up as the Joker, Danny
DeVito was getting gross to play the Penguin.
The diminutive comedian plays the umbrella-toting bad guy in Batman Returns, giving the most
disturbing performance of his career — which is amplified by a whole lot of messed-up makeup.
Thanks to the efforts of effects genius Stan Winston, DeVito was given a prosthetic that
started above his eyebrows, ran down his nose, and ended above his lips, giving him that
iconic beak.
He's also got a nasty set of false teeth, dark circles around his eyes, and skin painted
ghostly white.
The top of his head was shaved for the movie, with DeVito wearing a greasy hairpiece to
give him the appearance of someone who spent his life in a sewer.
In scenes that emphasized his hands, DeVito had to wear foam latex flippers.
And then there's the mouthwash.
This stuff was made of red and green food coloring, and it oozes from between the Penguin's
lips, giving him the look of a truly disgusting monster.
"And Danny came up to me.”
“I love this.”
“I was not talking to Danny DeVito, the Penguin was there and he was scary."
On top of all that, DeVito was also wearing a lumpy fat suit the whole time, giving him
the look of a blubbery bird.
At first, it took DeVito four hours to get into all this makeup, but eventually, the
crew whittled it down to just three.
And once DeVito was ready, the dude never broke character.
In fact, when he had to come back to rerecord lines in post-production, he actually put
the makeup back on so he could recapture the feel of the Penguin.
Now that's hardcore.
Let's get this out of the way right up front: Bright really isn't a very good film.
But that doesn't mean the movie didn't work a little magic.
For one, the makeup is absolutely incredible.
The folks at Amalgamated Dynamics did a fantastic job of creating a world filled to the brim
with elves and orcs.
On top of that, Joel Edgerton also gives a solid performance as Nick Jakoby, the first
orc officer in LAPD history.
And he did so from under a good foot of prosthetics, too.
Every day when Edgerton came into work, the actor spent about three hours suiting up to
play Jakoby.
Since it took 60 days to film Bright, that means Edgerton spent over a week of his life
getting prepped with foam latex prosthetics.
For his orcish skin, the makeup crew based Jakoby's motley colors on the appearance of
hairless mammals, such as hairless dogs and hippos.
Paint the hands blue, slap on some fangs, and voila, you've got yourself an orc.
The whole process was so intensive that Will Smith almost never saw his co-star out of
his mythological makeup.
But what's truly impressive is that Edgerton manages to convey so much emotion as the kindhearted
Jakoby even though he's buried under all that latex.
Gary Oldman isn't afraid to lose himself in a part.
Over the years, he's played an elderly Dracula, Hannibal Lecter's disfigured arch-nemesis,
and even a space merchant with the galaxy's worst combover.
Arguably Oldman's greatest camo moment, however, came when he played Winston Churchill in the
biopic Darkest Hour.
But the actor never would have taken the role without the help of a man named Kazuhiro Tsuji.
Tsuji made a name for himself working on films like Looper, Hellboy, and Tim Burton's Planet
of the Apes.
When Oldman was approached by director Joe Wright to star as Churchill, the actor said
he'd only do it if Tsuji came out of retirement to work on his makeup.
It was a fair request too, since, in fairness, Oldman looks nothing like Churchill.
Thankfully, Tsuji was up to the challenge.
After six months of research and prep time, Tsuji spent four hours each day transforming
Oldman into the English wartime leader.
Basically, Oldman's entire face was enhanced with prosthetics.
The man even had bits of plastic shoved behind his ears to make them look like Churchill's.
Instead of gaining weight, however, Oldman opted to wear a bodysuit — but still had
to wear a number of hairpieces, made of both Angora and baby hair.
Because the whole ordeal was so intensive, the actor never ate or slept on set, too worried
that he'd mess up the makeup.
All that work paid off, however, as both Oldman and Tsuji walked away from Darkest Hour with
Academy Awards.
"When makeup combines with amazing actor it will become that person that we intend to
create."
The MCU has had plenty of actors go totally incognito over the years, mostly thanks to
the power of motion capture and CGI.
But while the Marvel animators did an amazing job of transforming actors including Josh
Brolin, Mark Ruffalo and Taika Waititi, you've got to give credit to Karen Gillan and the
MCU make-up team for going old school.
The red-headed actress has shown up multiple times in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as
Nebula, the blue-skinned assassin with some major daddy issues.
Over the course of the series, she's evolved from a single-minded murderer to a full-on
Avenger, and just like her character, Gillan's makeup process has changed quite a bit too.
When she first arrived on the original Guardians of the Galaxy, Gillan was equipped with a
five-piece prosthetic that took a staggering five hours to complete.
She had to wear 22-millimeter contact lenses, paint her hands blue, and worst of all, she
had to shave her gorgeous red locks to get Nebula's smooth dome.
"But I still have my hair because Marvel were very kind and they shaved my hair off and
they made it into a wig for me so I can still wear my own hair and that's creepy."
But when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 rolled around, the makeup crew cut the process down
by two and a half hours.
Better still, they only had to shave the sides of Gillan's hair, leaving her with a red top.
And hey, that's still a win.
Charlize Theron is a powerhouse of an actress, having given utterly breathtaking performances
in movies like Young Adult and Mad Max: Fury Road.
Of course, she's also an incredibly beautiful woman, and was even named the Sexiest Woman
Alive by Esquire in 2007.
In fact, she's so good looking that she's actually complained about it, saying it often
keeps her from getting the roles she really wants.
But her appearance didn't stop her from playing convicted killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003's
Monster.
Of course, that's probably because Theron totally transformed herself into a grotesque
serial killer for the part.
To make herself look like Wuornos, the film's makeup team shaved her eyebrows, gave her
a pair of fake teeth, and used makeup to dirty up her perfect skin.
Theron also stopped working out and began to enjoy more of pretty much anything that
was full of cream.
By the time she was done with her anti-diet, Theron had picked up 30 pounds.
Most importantly, Theron understood how Wuornos thought and felt by reading hundreds of letters
written by the serial killer.
Without getting into Wuornos' head, the transformation wouldn't quite have been complete — but
armed with all those letters and 30 extra pounds, Theron gave one of the best performances
of her career and earned herself an Oscar for Best Actress.
Johnny Depp has always been a big fan of makeup, props, and funny hats.
But his most amazing transformation comes in Black Mass, where he plays the notorious
James "Whitey" Bulger — homicidal mobster, FBI informant, and head of the Winter Hill
Gang.
And rather than simply trying to capture the man's essence, Depp decided to copy Bulger's
look — right down to his icy blue eyes.
Those unnerving peepers were courtesy of a couple of hand-painted contacts.
Meanwhile, Depp's real eyebrows were completely covered up, and to capture Bulger's upsetting
grin, Depp stained his teeth yellow.
As for his face, makeup designer Joel Harlow told Boston magazine:
"From the middle of [Depp's] face up is entirely prosthetic."
But the most impressive part of Depp's get-up are the hairpieces.
They were made out of real human hair, and somebody had the thankless job of putting
each and every hair into the prosthetic, one strand at a time.
It took 22 hours to make one piece, and Depp had to wear a new one for every single day
of filming.
So yeah, getting the gangster's look right was a pretty intense experience.
In fact, Depp and Harlow weren't even happy with the makeup until just five days before
shooting started.
And even better, while a lot of critics and moviegoers were awed by Depp's new look, the
real Whitey Bulger was less than impressed with his performance.
Christian Bale's physical transformations are the stuff of Hollywood legend, and ever
the glutton for bodily harm, Bale decided to wreck himself once more by accepting the
role of Dick Cheney in Adam McKay's dark comedy biopic Vice.
In addition to studying footage of Cheney, Bale had to make himself bald, bleach his
eyebrows, and wear multiple wigs for the role.
He also spent four to eight hours a day getting made-over.
Basically every part of his body was replaced or enhanced by a prosthetic, including his
chin, nose, and cheeks.
Bale was also really worried about his neckline, so he spent $3,000 on a muscle-building machine
to accumulate some mass — and ended up wearing a neck prosthetic anyway.
Most infamously, however, Bale packed on some serious weight to play Cheney.
The actor put on about 40 pounds in total but, at one point in the shoot, actually lost
the weight he had gained and had to wear a fat suit for the rest of filming.
And then there's Cheney's movements and mannerisms.
Speaking with Newsweek, McKay claimed he had a two-hour conversation with Bale just about
the proper way for the actor to hold his jaw.
While the film ended up being pretty divisive, Bale impressed almost everybody with his performance,
and the makeup crew earned themselves an Oscar for their role in transforming Bale into the
Vice President of the United States.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite stuff are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.