Narrator: When Charlize Theron played Megyn Kelly
in "Bombshell," the makeup team had to change
the very structure of Theron's face,
right down to her nose.
Makeup artist Kazu Hiro gave Theron two hidden nose plugs
tailored to widen her nostrils to match Kelly's face.
It's just one of the many details productions tackle
when transforming actors into real public figures,
because unlike fictional characters,
audiences already know what these characters look like,
so they can easily catch any mistake.
Rami Malek's Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury
in "Bohemian Rhapsody" needed to capture
one very unique physical feature:
the Queen front man's iconic teeth.
So Malek wore fake teeth
to account for Mercury's additional four incisors.
And the teeth had to be adjusted and resized perfectly
so they didn't change the way Malek talked.
Since Mercury was a performer, Malek also had to move
and dance on stage the way Mercury did.
To achieve this, Malek worked
with movement director Polly Bennett.
First, they studied Mercury's past
and learned that he was both a boxer
and long-distance runner.
So Malek trained himself to be agile
and limber like a boxer.
With this boxing background,
Mercury could change direction very quickly on stage.
And so too could Malek.
Meanwhile, the film wanted to recreate Live Aid
nearly shot for shot, meaning Malek had to imitate
every frame of the concert footage.
You can see Malek perfectly match
how Mercury handles the mic here
and how he struts around on stage here.
The makeup team behind "Bombshell"
had just six weeks of preproduction
to make Charlize Theron look like Megyn Kelly.
Luckily, Theron didn't need heavy prosthetics
for her transformation.
Instead, the team focused more on subtle differences,
far beyond the nose plugs we mentioned earlier.
First, Theron and Kelly have very different-shaped eyes.
So makeup artist Vivian Baker turned to fake eyelashes,
using Lashify Gossamers,
which come in pieces instead of a single strip.
This flexibility gave Baker the ability
to play with the weight of Theron's lash line.
With the addition of fake eyelids,
this transformed her eyes,
according to makeup artist Kazu Hiro,
from deep-socketed to more hooded.
To get a deeper shade of blue to match Kelly's eyes,
Theron wore colored contact lenses.
And to match what the makeup team described
as Kelly's "heart-shaped face,"
the team lowered Theron's wig,
thus lowering her hairline.
Hiro also created some traditional prosthetics as well,
like an upturned nose tip
and angular jaw and chin pieces.
Actor Gary Oldman looks nothing like Winston Churchill.
So when the actor was cast to play Churchill
in "Darkest Hour,"
makeup artist Kazu Hiro had to cover Oldman
in nearly half his body weight
worth of special effects makeup.
They did about three to five makeup tests,
matching various silicone prostheses
to see what was crucial and what wasn't.
Hiro realized he could cover Oldman's cheeks,
jowls, neck, chin, and nose.
But Oldman's eyes, mouth, and forehead
were important for emphasizing expressions and emotions.
So Hiro intentionally left out
some of Churchill's physical features,
like discarding the piece
for Churchill's real-life forehead scar.
That's why you can see Oldman's real forehead creases
emote as much as his mouth.
The team made up for this diversion from the truth
by nailing details the viewer
might not even think of as essential,
like giving the prosthetic pieces pink and blotchy tones
to match the leader's skin.
In the end, even without the scar,
"Darkest Hour" created a convincing Churchill,
leading to Oscar wins for both Oldman and Hiro.
As seen in "I, Tonya," visual effects
can be just as crucial to an actor's transformation
as makeup and training.
Margot Robbie trained for five months
to skate like Tonya Harding,
but there were multiple moves
too difficult for a non-Olympic athlete.
And since Harding's skating routines
are just as famous as her public persona,
the film had to get the moves exactly right.
So the team used two VFX methods
to seamlessly combine Robbie's training
with her stunt double's.
For the first method, a stunt double would skate
with an orange tennis ball on her head.
Her face would be swapped out for Robbie's.
The second method was full head replacement.
They 3D-scanned Robbie's face to get a full range
of her skin texture and expressions
in order to build a digital model.
Head replacement was useful
for complex shots like this one,
which was actually three shots stitched together.
Because of this careful work behind the scenes,
you'll never be able to tell
what part of the shot is Robbie
and what part is a double.
Instead, you can just focus on how Robbie imitated
all of Harding's mannerisms,
from putting her hand over her face when she's upset
to raising her arms in a moment of triumph.
In "Rocketman," the first step to transforming
Taron Egerton into Elton John
was nailing the costumes,
especially when Egerton was performing.
After all, John himself said he doesn't feel
like the Elton John
until he chooses his outfit for a show.
So costume designer Julian Day
closely modeled Egerton's looks
after John's real outfits.
This included designing 50 pairs of glasses
and 50 pairs of shoes, one of which was covered
in real Swarovski crystals.
And while Egerton already knew how to sing,
playing an instrument in Elton John's legendary style
is a whole other skill.
Egerton spent six weeks training
with piano coach Michael L. Roberts.
According to Roberts, a piano is hard to perform at,
since you can't move around with it
like you would with a guitar.
So Egerton focused on the unique parts
of John's playing style,
such as how he leans into his mic
and sometimes plays with his feet.
Roberts and Egerton also studied John's musical influences,
like blues and boogie-woogie,
to get the right style of finger placement.
Because of that physicality,
it really felt like you were watching Elton John play.