Home Featured Content

Beefing Up: 10 Actors Who Underwent Remarkable Physical Transformations For Their Roles

When an actor completely immerses themselves into a role, the result is usually stunning. Sometimes though, what's more impressive is the work that went in before filming even began. Changing appearance for roles has become quite common in movies today, but occasionally, an actor's physical transformation goes far beyond a bit of make-up or a haircut, like Christian Bale in, well, most of his films.

Charlize Theron For Monster

Recommended Videos

For an actress as stunningly beautiful as Charlize Theron to make herself appear as anything but gorgeous would take a lot of work, but for Monster it wasn’t just make-up artists that helped her take on her role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos, Theron added 30 pounds of her own to further the effect.

The appearance was greatly aided by make-up and a set of prosthetic teeth, but her performance likely wouldn’t have been as successful without the weight she gained. Her diet for the movie consisted mostly of potato chips and donuts, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in my books, but Theron only had 3 weeks between the final shoot of Monster and her next film, Head In The Clouds, which she drop back down to her normal weight for.

Her dedication certainly paid off, though, as it resulted in a Best Actress Oscar and was hailed as one of the best performances in the history of cinema by Roger Ebert.