you know the saying that actor disappeared in the role well sometimes that actually means literally
sure actors have a special gift to embody whatever character they're playing through
emotions and dialogue but other times they're just buried under a mountain of prosthetics and makeup
this is especially true in comic book movies today we're discussing those special marvel actors who
sat in makeup chairs for hours in order to play their characters who had it the worst
and why is paul bettany being painted blue let's find out right now if you think about it i would
say paul bettany has had the hardest transition for any actor in the mcu he started the series
as just a jarvis voice talking to robert downey jr probably just required a few days of work and
then a wheelbarrow of cash was dropped from kevin feige's hot air balloon but then he upgraded to
play vision and what started as a super easy role soon became the most complicated out of
any avenger there's not only the red paints that has to be applied but also the head prosthetics to
truly make betany into a robot the whole process took almost four hours every day and you know what
betty didn't really complain perhaps it was the charming british side of him but he said that he
was actually quite amazed that the process didn't take even longer for how great it ended up looking
and as a final note it's a makeup process that's always changing as the years go on
in wanda visions black and white episodes betany actually had to be painted blue and other special
prosthetics had to be applied so he'd show up properly in black and white wild the man the myth
the legend robert downey jr will probably always be the face of the mcu tony stark was at the
center of just about everything and it makes sense that the first three phases were bookended
with tony's origin and his ultimate sacrifice and truth be told rdj also had it pretty easy
when it came to being in shape all these years yes he had to be healthy and look good and all
that but it's not like he needed to have a chris hemsworth or chris evans body all his big stuff
was done through his cgi suit but there still were a few big prosthetic scenes every now and then
like take end game for instance i don't want to burst your bubble but that final fight wasn't
actually some desolated avengers headquarters but rather just a big old warehouse with green screens
rdj's costume had him wearing a shoulder and chest plate but everything else was cgi'd around him i
wonder how heavy those were overall though a small price to pay i mean really it shows the magic of
how far we've come with cgi versus prosthetics like his post snap crispy look i would have bet
money that that was glued on prosthetics but nope mostly all cgi to many i think it's safe to call
killmonger one of if not the best mcu villain ever he brought an equal amount of ferociousness and
sympathy to the role i only wish he kept the glasses that he wore during the museum heist
on like for the entire movie that would have been great but unlike a lot of other villains
he wasn't some type of monster or an alien he was just an extremely capable mercenary so what heavy
prosthetic work did jordan have to go through well whenever he took off his shirt which was
quite often killmonger's body was plastered with dots that represented every life that he took
and his body was riddled with them over 3000 of these prosthetic beads were made and stuck
all over the actor's body every day do you think you could put professional dot sticker on a resume
anyways you want to hear a fun fact of course you do that's why you're here the most difficult part
of this whole process was not surprisingly the first fight scene between t'chaka and killmonger
yeah all those prosthetic beads plus splashing around in water while fighting you do the math
i think the guardians of the galaxy franchise has the hardest working makeup department of any mcu
movie the amount of detail that goes into turning these actors into quirky and colorful aliens is
just incredible the one i want to highlight first is nebula played by karen gillen first
and foremost gillen had to shave her head i don't see anyone else doing that but then to create the
nebula look the design team took a full sized sculpted bust of gillan's head and they designed
the heavy prosthetics around it making sure it looked great but also you know had to make sure
gillen could still act underneath it all it was basically a five piece puzzle and while
that doesn't sound too hard at the beginning it took nearly five hours every day and that's
not even counting the 30 or so minutes it took to take everything off at the end of the day
i mean if i was one of these actors i just keep the prosthetics on at all times wouldn't you
alright imagine someone pitches to you that you get to be a big star in an mcu movie but then
tells you that it requires that you wear basically a pig's head the whole time would you say yes
i mean obviously we all would but being an actor is kind of weird when you think about it right
anyway ben mendelsohn plays talos in the mcu a character who we thought was the bad guy of the
movie because scrolls were generally bad guys and he was played by the go-to bad guy ben mendelsohn
but it turns out that wasn't the case talos was not only a good guy but he survived the movie had
another appearance in no way home and will soon headline his own mcu disney plush show with nick
fury that's nice but do you think there's any part of mendelssohn who just hopes they write in a plot
point where talos changes into a human and stays that way because the makeup for talos isn't easy
it's a process that again mendelssohn lovingly described in an interview as wearing a pig's head
hey the price of fame right okay this one isn't mcu but i mean maybe technically it is now with
the multiverse eddie k i just want to talk about oscar isaac i feel bad for him not just because
he was in a lackluster movie with x-men apocalypse but because of the heavy prosthetics he had to lug
around as the main batty the prosthetics he wore as apocalypse were so heavy and bulky that a lot
of the time he had to be wheeled around the set in a chair because he couldn't move on his own
ouch the sad thing is he only took the job because he was excited to work with fassbender and mcavoy
and lawrence and the rest of the talented cast but didn't get a chance to interact with them
much thanks to all the prosthetics michael rooker had to relearn a whole new skill in order to play
yondu properly thanks to all the heavy prosthetics we know he needed probably gallons of blue paint
but also to complete the look he needed fake contact lenses as well as fake prosthetic teeth
i guess the ravagers don't have a good dental plan huh who knew but these fake teeth forced rooker
to relearn how to whistle and you might think that's not a big deal but whistling is kind of
yondu's whole thing it helps with his overpowered arrow well after they had the prosthetic teeth in
and rooker found out whistling was difficult they went and created gaps in the prosthetics in order
to help rook her out i mean if that didn't work out i guess they could have changed it to yondu
clapping his hands in order to control the arrow but somehow i think that's less intimidating
the process for zoe saldana to become gamora took almost five hours every day mainly because
gamora likes to wear vests which leaves her arms totally exposed i'm sure the makeup
department asked on a few occasions if gamora could wear a sweater sometimes or something
anyways while a lot of the characters costume is green paint there are actually some prosthetics
involved her forehead is actually a prosthetic piece that the design team sculpted in order
to create a new shadow line for her eyebrows and her cheeks are actually prosthetics too to
help define the cheekbones crazy huh okay i know josh brolin doesn't necessarily wear a
lot of prosthetics for thanos as we live in a completely digital age but like if you see his
get up to play thanos you would think it's his own special kind of prosthetics the amount of
cgi equipment that's rigged and covered all over brolin's body during the shooting of infinity war
and endgame just looks insane i mean they have him walk around with a big screen on top of his head
in order to help people visualize how tall thanos is going to be but hey would you rather have this
or the early thanos days pre-brolin where his face was almost completely prosthetic in that
original avengers movie tough choice no matter how hard drax tries to be invisible we can still all
see the incredible work that goes into his design unsurprisingly dave bautista spent practically the
most time in the makeup chair with the process taking close to five hours to create drax the
makeup team designed 18 different prosthetics that are attached to bautista's body along with all the
paints the tattoos the dentures and the contact lenses yeah it's no wonder batista seems fine
leaving this role behind after volume three right you know i heard chris evans wore prosthetics too
apparently he really is that pre-super soldier skinny like at the beginning of
captain america the first avenger and his massive muscle transformation is just a big
muscle suit and good lighting okay fine that's not true but it helps my own self-esteem okay