30 Unrecognisable Movie Star Transformations
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
The Movie Star: Talky funny guy Ryan Reynolds.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Reynolds is known for his sharp tongue, so to see him without a mouth is to be driven mad with confusion.
Transformed into the deadly Deadpool at the end of this sub-par comic adap, Reynolds rocks the bald, vein-y look. It's... Just... Wrong...
Looks More Like: A GI: Joe villain.
Big Fish (2003)
The Movie Star: Glamorous British actress Helena Bonham Carter.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Three things: eye-patch, frizzy silver hair and the kind of complexion you only see on mummified corpses.
Those are things cinema-goers didn't generally equate with Miss Bonham Carter back in the Noughties - until, that is, her hubby turned her into a scary witch in his fantasy book adap.
Looks More Like: The female gnome played by Patricia Hayes in The Neverending Story .
The Grinch (2000)
The Movie Star: Rubber-faced comedian Jim Carrey.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Well, Carrey isn't generally quite so green-faced. He's also not normally quite as fuzzy, but he was BOTH (and then some) in this adaptation of Dr Seuss's bedtime favourite.
Plus there's the tiny nose and whiskers, which are more disturbing that words can possibly convey...
Looks More Like: That thing you're pretty convinced is living under your bed.
Batman Returns (1992)
The Movie Star: Taxi star and bona fide chuckle machine Danny DeVito.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: While Michelle Pfeiffer was busy squeezing herself into catsuits on this comic book sequel, DeVito was getting turned into a nightmarish penguin thing.
With his prosthetic nose, black saliva and flippers, DeVito's Penguin is a terrifying creation that sees the actor navigating darkly comedic waters.
Looks More Like: The missing evolutionary link between penguins and modern man.
Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire (2005)
The Movie Star: Ralph Fiennes.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: He's missing a nose, for starters. Also, that dark crop of hair seems to be missing.
See, Fiennes is playing Voldemort, aka the most evil wizard who ever lived, which is why he's looking somewhat off-colour.
Looks More Like: A viper. A man-sized viper.
Beetlejuice (1988)
The Movie Star: A pre-Batman Michael Keaton.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Though he was best-known as a comedian (on shows like Working Stuffs and Night Shifts ), Keaton's transformation into Beetlejuice still boggled brains.
With that crazy green hair, facial war-paint and stripy suit, he looks nothing like the Keaton we know and love. Crazier still - he landed Batman off the back of this...
Looks More Like: Somebody tripping on acid who found a stripe-making machine.
Hellboy (2004)
The Movie Star: Perpetual scene-stealer Ron Perlman.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Perlman was the perfect choice for a live-action version of Hellboy - not only does he have the voice, he also has the jawline.
Which worked perfectly in conjunction with the myriad prosthetics (four hours in the make-up chair) he had to wear to play the demon with a formidable red right hand.
Looks More Like: Hellboy; it's as if he's stepped right out of the comics.
Cloud Atlas (2012)
The Movie Star: Bumbling, floppy-haired Brit actor Hugh Grant.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Though all of the actors go through some startling transformations in the Wachowskis' book adap, perhaps the most shocking is this one.
Grant donned severed body parts (a jaw, a finger) and lots of body paint to play a formidable warrior. Take that, Love, Actually.
Looks More Like: An extra from Apocalyto .
Avatar (2009)
The Movie Star: Star Trek 's very own Uhura, aka Zoe Saldana.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: She's not actually on-screen, which helps with the confusion.
Saldana mo-capped her role as alien Neytiri in James Cameron's sci-fi, meaning though she provided the movements for the character, she's never physically on screen. Also, she looks more like a cat than a human.
Looks More Like: A Smurf crossed with a lioness.
Sin City (2005)
The Movie Star: Actor gone wild Mickey Rourke.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Covered in plasters and donning a prosthetic face/hair-piece, Rourke's transformed into a terrifying hulk of a man in this comic adap.
As Marv, Rourke's prosthetics are so convincing that - paired with a muscular performance - they kicked-started the actor's faltering career.
Looks More Like: A cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis.
Spring Breakers (2012)
The Movie Star: Work-a-holic and Jack of all trades James Franco. Seriously, does this guy ever take a day off?
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Gobbing off like a gangster, even the voice is unrecognisable as Franco plays, er, gangster Alien.
Factor in corn-row hair, giant shades and THOSE metal teeth, and this is miles away from Franco's turn as Harry Osborn in the Spidey flicks.
Looks More Like: Marky Mark in the '90s.
Hook (1993)
The Movie Star: Multiple Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Dolled up in a curly black wig and one of the most impressive movie moustaches we've ever seen, Hoffman doesn't look anything like himself as bad guy Captain Hook.
It's even more disturbing when the curly wig comes off, revealing a plucked-chicken pate...
Looks More Like: A buck-toothed Looney Tunes character.
Hitchcock (2012)
The Movie Star: The Welsh sir otherwise known as Anthony Hopkins.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: With the unmistakable double chin and the way he drawls his lines, it's impossible not to confuse Hopkins with the man he's playing in this biopic.
Here, it's director Alfred Hitchcock, a role that Hopkins actively campaigned to land. Wonder if he regretted it after a long day in those prosthetics...
Looks More Like: Hitchcock, luckily enough.
Shadow Of The Vampire (2000)
The Movie Star: Workaholic actor Willem Dafoe.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Dafoe took his cue from classic vampire flick Nosferatu in this film surrounding the fictional making of that seminal fright flick.
Bald, perpetually grim-faced and with some terrifying claws, he makes the Green Goblin look positively friendly...
Looks More Like: Some kind of scarily mutated Roland The Rat.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
The Movie Star: Action stud and impossible-mission-solver Tom Cruise.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: In a far cry from his normal look as a chiselled, ridiculously-fit action hero, Cruise donned a fat suit and a bald cap to play irate studio exec Les Grossman.
The character proved so popular that there's been talk of a spin-off for Grossman, with Cruise apparently all-too-prepared to don the fat suit again.
Looks More Like: Any number of movie executives. We won’t name names…
Hannibal (2001)
The Movie Star: Oscar-nominated Brit Gary Oldman.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: For Hannibal Lecter's return to the big screen, Oldman transformed himself into a terribly-scarred criminal whom Lecter himself personally dealt with.
Disfigured and paralysed, he comes to a particularly horrible fate involving hungry wild boars…
Looks More Like: A victim of Hannibal Lecter…
Legend (1985)
The Movie Star: Funny chap and Rocky Horror maestro Tim Curry.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: He's painted entirely red and wearing three-foot-tall fibreglass horns. Which'll just about fool anybody.
Curry spent five and a half hours in make-up every day that he worked on the film, and had to wear a harness under his make-up to keep those impressive horns aloft. Which is fine, because every day ended with a lovely hour-long bath that dissolved the soluble spirit gum.
Looks More Like: The devil himself.
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Movie Star: British treasure and all-round top bloke John Hurt.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Hurt's transformation into real-life deformed man Joseph Merrick is so convincing that you really believe it's Merrick on-screen.
Unsurprisingly, the prosthetics used were based on actual casts of Merrick's body. The final result was so staggering that it prompted the Academy Awards to create a whole new category for Best Movie Make-Up.
Looks More Like: Well, Joseph Merrick. It's really that good.
Things Fall Apart (2011)
The Movie Star: Rapper and wannabe actor 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson).
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Playing a footballer who suffers from an incurable disease, 50 Cent shocked the world by tweeting images of himself emaciated and skeletal.
Dropping from 214 to 160lbs in just nine weeks, he lived on a liquid diet and ran on a treadmill for three hours every day.
Looks More Like: A really, really ill person.
The Informant! (2009)
The Movie Star: Bourne himself, otherwise known as Matt Damon.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: In order to look more like the real-life man he was playing - whistle-blower Mark Whitacre - Damon gained 20-30 pounds and sports a moustache.
Looks More Like: Corey Haim.
Hairspray (2007)
The Movie Star: One-time action hero and Grease heartthrob John Travolta.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Um, he's dressed as a woman. And quite a sizeable one at that.
Rather than pulling a Jared Leto and eating himself big, Travolta wore a fatsuit and A LOT of make-up to play Tracy Turnblad's mother in this musical stage adap.
Looks More Like: Rikki Lake.
Precious (2009)
The Movie Star: Platinum-selling pop singer turned actress (and Glitter star) Mariah Carey.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Popping up at the midway point of Lee Daniels' book adap, Carey plays an understanding social worker with barely a scrap of make-up on.
Not only that, but Carey put in such a gentle and genuine performance that it was even less likely we’d believe this was the same woman who changed her outfit 500 times during a single episode of MTV's Cribs ...
Looks More Like: Mariah Carey before she became ‘Mariah Carey’…
Raging Bull (1980)
The Movie Star: Martin Scorsese's favourite actor, Robert De Niro.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: In order to portray Jake LaMotta's spiralling life from champ to chunk, De Niro gained 60lbs. By the end of filming, he was doughier than we'd ever imagined De Niro could ever look.
In fact, De Niro got tired so quickly during those weightier segments that filming hours had to be slashed...
Looks More Like: The Stay Puft Marshmellow Man.
Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)
The Movie Star: Glenn Close, who most recently had the small screen sizzling in Damages .
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Close has been slathered in prosthetics to play Nova Prime, an alien in Marvel's awesome-looking sci-fi extravaganza.
Close previously made herself into a man for Albert Nobbs, so why not go the full hog and play an ET? We admire that kind of courage.
Looks More Like: One of those cat nuns from Doctor Who.
The Machinist (2004)
The Movie Star: Brit actor Christian Bale.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Just a year after this film, Bale beefed up as Batman, making his dramatic weight loss for Brad Anderson's thriller all the more shocking.
Bale pushed himself to the limit by losing 62lbs - and he would have lost more if the filmmakers hadn't stepped in and ordered him to stop.
Looks More Like: He-Man villain Skeletor. Weirdly, Bale could probably pull off playing both Skeletor AND He-Man…
Chapter 27 (2007)
The Movie Star: A usually-svelte and six-pack-having Jared Leto.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Before he lost a ton of weight to play an AIDS sufferer in Dallas Buyers Club (alongside Matthew McConaughey), Leto went the opposite way and packed in the pies to play Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon.
Looks More Like: Well, a fat Jared Leto, to be honest.
Foxcatcher (2013)
The Movie Star: Anchorman funny guy Steve Carell.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Well, he's got a massive fake schnozz on for a start. Carell was also aged for his role as John EleuthËre du Pont, the paranoid schizophrenic who ended up killing his brother, meaning the salt n pepper look probably threw you off the scent, too.
Looks More Like: Gerard Depardieu.
Prometheus (2012)
The Movie Star: Aussie actor Guy Pearce, perhaps best known for losing his memory in Memento .
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: He's hidden under layers and layers of prosthetics, transformed into a seriously old man who seems perpetually on the brink of death - probably because he is.
Looks More Like: A pickled baby bird. Or your 100+ granddad.
The Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
The Movie Star: Former rom-com favourite Matthew McConaughey.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: McConaughey lost 38lbs in order to play a man suffering from AIDS. With his gaunt features and withered frame, he looks nothing like the bronzed Adonis who regularly whips his shirt off on-screen.
Looks More Like: Bizarrely, Harry Dean Stanton.
Monster (2003)
The Movie Star: Blonde bombshell and former model Charlize Theron.
Why You Wouldn’t Recognise Them: Theron infamously underwent an 'uglification' process to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos, packing on 30lbs and wearing prosthetics to become pretty much unrecognisable.
She deserved that Oscar and then some.
Looks More Like: A Made In Chelsea cast member after a particularly heavy night on the tiles.