7 actors who completely transformed themselves for roles this year
Brendan Fraser wore a 300-pound, 3D-printed fat suit as Charlie in "The Whale."
It took Jamie Campbell Bower eight hours to transform into "Stranger Things" villain Vecna.
Lily James wore a blonde wig, chest plate, and fake tan to play Pamela Anderson in "Pam & Tommy."
Emma Thompson was unrecognizable as Miss Trunchbull in Netflix's film adaptation of "Matilda the Musical."
It took three hours to turn Thompson into the sadistic principal, Thompson said at a press conference at the London Film Festival in October.
Thompson said that the bodysuit she wore was so heavy that it took six people to carry it to set.
"There's an actual body suit, which is to give her the heft and the muscle. And then a massive weighty underwear and pretend chest and all of that," Thompson told Variety in December. "It was a lot to walk around in."
Brendan Fraser wore a 300-pound fat suit in the A24 film "The Whale."
Fraser played Charlie, an English teacher with obesity who struggles to connect with his estranged daughter while dealing with the loss of his partner.
Fraser compared the 3D-printed fat suit he wore during filming to a "straight jacket."
"The torso piece was almost like a straight jacket, with sleeves that went on, airbrushed by hand, to look identical as would human skin, right down to the hand-punched hair," Fraser told Vanity Fair of the prosthetics he wore, which took four to six hours to apply each day.
Some reviewers criticized Fraser's use of a fat suit and called the film fatphobic for how it depicts Charlie and his weight. Director Darren Aronofsky defended the use of a fat suit in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, saying, "Actors have been using makeup since the beginning of acting — that's one of their tools."
It took Lily James four hours to become Pamela Anderson for the Hulu series "Pam & Tommy."
The eight-episode series follows Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's whirlwind romance and addresses their infamous sex tape that was filmed during their 1995 honeymoon.
James told Porter that she "hated" removing her makeup and costume after transforming into the former Playboy model.
In an interview with Porter, James said that her four-hour physical transformation involved a blonde wig, chest plate, and fake tan.
"It was like being stripped of all these superpowers," James said of reverting back to her regular appearance. "I'd really enjoyed the physicality and the sensuality, even down to the long fingernails. There was just so much character to hold on to — it was really thrilling."
In "The Batman," Colin Farrell played supervillain Oswald "Oz" Cobblepot, known as the Penguin.
Farrell will reprise his role in an HBO Max series exploring the Penguin's origin story.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Farrell described the role as "one of the most fun gigs I've had," despite spending four hours in the makeup chair each day.
"It was so fun to inhabit," Farrell said in March." I had such permission to just explore and create and use my imagination."
Jamie Campbell Bower portrayed the fearsome villain Vecna in "Stranger Things."
Vecna, a murderous humanoid monster from the Upside Down, torments his victims with telekinetic powers before gruesomely killing them.
Bower said the prosthetics took a staggering eight hours to apply and two hours to remove.
Bower told TV Line in July that the pants of the bodysuit did include a zipper, but that using the bathroom in the Vecna costume was "very, very complicated."
Emmy Rossum played the titular character in the Peacock miniseries "Angelyne."
The series follows the model who rose to fame by appearing on billboards across Los Angeles in the 1980s and is loosely based on a 2017 Hollywood Reporter article revealing Angelyne's true identity as the child of Polish Holocaust survivors.
The prosthetic breasts gave Rossum blisters, and the colored contact lenses and thick eye makeup irritated her tear ducts, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Despite the physical toll of the role, Rossum told The Hollywood Reporter she found the experience of playing Angelyne "completely liberating."
"At first, it's unnerving," she said in May. "But feeling lost gives way to this real liberation — from myself and the hang-ups that can impede a performance."
Natalie Portman reprised her role as Jane Foster in the Marvel movie "Thor: Love and Thunder."
Instead of playing a damsel in distress, Portman became the Mighty Thor herself.
Portman said she was asked to get "as big as possible" for the film, a first in her Hollywood career.
In an interview with Variety, Portman said she worked with a trainer for four months before shooting began and bulked up by lifting weights and drinking protein shakes.
She added that it was the first time she was asked to get large and muscular for a role in her 30-year-long career.
"On 'Black Swan,' I was asked to get as small as possible," Portman said. "Here, I was asked to get as big as possible. That's an amazing challenge — and also state of mind as a woman."
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