How many hollywood stars known for their good looks intentionally played ugly people

[Wesley Clark]

What all celebrities who are known for their good looks decided to play a role where they would intentionally be made ugly and unattractive? Offhand I can only think of two.


Leonardo Dicaprio in Whats eating Gilbert Grape
Charlize Theron in Monster

I'm not including attractive people who have been made ugly for a small part of the movie (Tom Cruise after he emerges from the swamp in Interview with the Vampire or Brad Pitt after being beaten up in Fight Club), i'm more wondering about a movie where the star becomes ugly for the whole role and did it intentionally.

[Kamino Neko]

Mel Gibson, Man Without a Face

[Larry Borgia]

Cameron Diaz, Being John Malkovitch

[Otto]

Gwyneth Paltrow, Shallow Hal
Bette Davis (never a glamourpuss, but IMHO strikingly attractive), Mr Skeffington (for later scenes so may not count) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (although she was past her best days she certainly wasn't as hideous as Jane Hudson)
Joan Crawford, also in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (although she did her damndest to subvert it)

[LifeOnWry]

Charlize Theron in Monster.

[Superdude]

Charlize Theron in Monster.

Named in the OP.

[Talon Karrde]

Cameron Diaz, Being John Malkovitch
Are you serious? I thought she was hot in that movie, and I normally don't find her attractive.

[commasense]

Mickey Rourke in Johnny Handsome and Sin City.

(Okay, he's not my idea of a really handsome guy, especially since he went in for pro boxing. I was shocked at his appearance on a recent David Letterman. It looked like he still had some of his Marv makeup on.)

From the Golden Age: Boris Karloff (http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1403/Mptv/1403/7554_0124.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Karloff,%20Boris) wasn't a glamour boy, but was obviously nowhere near as ugly as the monster. (http://us.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0021884/Ss/0021884/3?path=pgallery&path_key=Karloff,%20Boris)

Lon Chaney (http://encarta.msn.com/media_461528447/Lon_Chaney.html) made a career out of playing hideous (http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1189/Mptv/1189/3494_0002.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Chaney,%20Lon) character (http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1229/Mptv/1229/17119_0001.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Chaney,%20Lon) roles, (http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1229/Mptv/1229/18526_0002.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Chaney,%20Lon) but I don't think you'd say he was someone known for his good looks (http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1189/Mptv/1189/0810_0410.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Chaney,%20Lon) without makeup.

Same is true of Charles Laughton (http://us.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1316/Mptv/1316/0542_0032.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Laughton,%20Charles): no Clark Gable, but his Quasimodo (http://www.hollywood-north.net/hwslee.htm) (scroll halfway down the page) was remarkable (and remarkably ugly).

[brickbacon]

Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky
Halle Berry in Jungle Fever

[Miss Purl McKnittington]

Gerard Butler (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124930/) played the Phantom in the latest version of The Phantom of the Opera. Oh (http://dvdtoile.com/ARTISTES/1/1346.jpg) my (http://film.onet.pl/_i/news/duze/g/gerard_butler_2.jpg) god (http://www.gerardbutler.de/themes/random/small.jpg), hottie (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/natasha925/Misc/Gerard11-2.jpg). As the Phantom and unmasked, not so much. (With the mask (http://news.mywebpal.com/partners/356/images/news/Entertain1%20(1).jpg), still pretty hot.)

A lot of people thought that Nicole Kidman uglified herself to play Virginia Woolf in The Hours. I disagree with this, because I really don't think Virginia Woolf was ugly -- plain (http://www.faculty.sbc.edu/mares/images%20folder/brits/virginia-woolf.jpg) when she was older, but she was quite striking (http://rasputina.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/virginia_1.jpg) as a young woman. Also, while I'm not particularly fond of Ms. Kidman, I don't think she was ugly (http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1040174434779_2002/12/21/kidmanwoolf.jpg) in The Hours, either.

Tangentially related, but Janeane Garofalo (http://www.sergioleone.net/mm-14.jpg) was supposed to be the ugly one in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. What? She's adorable.

I remember there being a rash of articles about actresses who "uglify" themselves getting an automatic Oscar nod. I suppose the actual uglification is better than the old Hollywood method of tossing a girl in glasses and rendering her automatically unworthy of a man's attention.

[LifeOnWry]

Named in the OP.

Good grief, so she is.

Sorry. I was driving for six hours today, I'm a little brain-damaged right now.

[Wesley Clark]

Tangentially related, but Janeane Garofalo (http://www.sergioleone.net/mm-14.jpg) was supposed to be the ugly one in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. What? She's adorable.



I've never understood the Garofolo as ugly thing myself, she is a 9 out of 10.

I nominate Christian Bale (http://www.filmmesse-leipzig.de/filmbilder/the_machinist.jpg) in "the Machinist" as another. He lost 60 pounds and grew some facial hair for that one.

[Askia]

Eddie Murphy in the Nutty Professor movies and Bowfinger.

Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes Her.

[Sampiro]

Michelle Pfeiffer starred in Frankie & Johnny (http://imdb.com/title/tt0101912/) as a "plain jane" waitress. It was based on a Terrance McNally play about a love affair between two decidedly unglamorous people and, of course, was Californicated into... well, a role for Michelle Pfeiffer.

Jeffrey Hunter's only action-figure role was as the horribly deformed Jeremy Pike in Star Trek. That episode (the pilot rewritten and adapted into a two-parter) was in part based on the 1945 movie The Enchanted Cottage (http://imdb.com/title/tt0037671/), in which homely couple Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire fall in love and are beautiful (sans make-up) to each other.

Tina Louise played her homely doppelganger in an episode of Gilligan's Island.

[Sampiro]

Ah, and Emma Thompson's characters included a butch nurse and a deranged homeless woman in Angels in America (http://imdb.com/title/tt0318997/).

[betenoir]

Brad Pitt in Kalifornia (and to a lesser extent, Twelve Monkeys).

[Marley23]

Are you serious? I thought she was hot in that movie, and I normally don't find her attractive.
He's right. She looked very unglamorous, dressed crappily, wore that gross wig, etc. It didn't succeed for you, I guess, but she was trying to look plain. And like somebody who worked with monkeys.

[jackelope]

Minnie Driver went mousy and plain in Owning Mahowny.

[Larry Mudd]

Count me as another who only noticed Cameron Diaz was actually attractive in Being John Malkovich.

Does John Hurt count, in The Elephant Man?

He was known as a handsome fella, although he was already starting to look a bit boozy and aged by the time Elephant Man started shooting, and now looks pretty convincingly like a railroad tramp.

[Alessan]

Johnny Depp, possibly the best-looking actor of his generation, has played down his looks on several occasions - most notably in Edward Scissorhands (http://www.justmarystuff.com/filterfrenzy/edward.jpg).

[betenoir]

most notably in Edward Scissorhands (http://www.justmarystuff.com/filterfrenzy/edward.jpg).

Obviously you're not a Goth :D .

[Alessan]

I'm more of a Vandal.

[Annie-Xmas]

Eric Stoltz in "Mask"

[RealityChuck]

Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull -- especially in the scenes as the older, fat Marciano.

[Eve]

Joan Crawford in A Woman's Face (1941)
Norma Shearer, makeup-less in the amusingly titled Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Mary Pickford as a crippled Cockney in Stella Maris (1918)

[Fringe]

I'm more of a Vandal.

Touche.

[CalMeacham]

Laurie Mitchell in Queen of Outer Space ("Men! Men did this to me!")

Marlene Dietrich (when all is said and done) in Witness for the Prosecution

One of the women in The Brain/Head that Wouldn't Die


You couldn't cal him beautiful, I'll grant you, but John Hurt in The Elephant Man. Not to mention Anthony Parker as Merrick in From Hell.







And all those women of whom they say -- "Why, Miss Jones, without your glasses you're beautiful!" Hollywood has a different standard of ugly (and fat) than the rest of us. Just for once I want to hear:













"Why, Miss Jones, without my glasses you're beautiful!"

[F. U. Shakespeare]

Raging Bull was about Jake La Motta, not Rocky Marciano.

Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull -- especially in the scenes as the older, fat Marciano.

[UrbanChic]

Ralph Fiennes as Dolarhyde in Red Dragon.

[betenoir]

Ralph Fiennes as Dolarhyde in Red Dragon.

:dubious: I tought he looked as good as ever. Unless you think that little scar from the cleft palate was as horribly disfiguing as Dolarhyde did. Not to say he was all that attractive in the movie but he was unattractive as a character.

[Acsenray]

Michelle Pfeiffer starred in Frankie & Johnny (http://imdb.com/title/tt0101912/) as a "plain jane" waitress. It was based on a Terrance McNally play about a love affair between two decidedly unglamorous people and, of course, was Californicated into... well, a role for Michelle Pfeiffer.

Wasn't it originally supposed to be Kathy Bates or someone like that?

Jeffrey Hunter's only action-figure role was as the horribly deformed Jeremy Pike in Star Trek. That episode (the pilot rewritten and adapted into a two-parter)

Hunter appeared only as the handsome Pike in the scenes taken from the original pilot episode. The uglified Pike was played by Sean Kenney. But, the Vina character, played by Susan Oliver, was horribly deformed; however, in most of the scenes, she appeared as the beautiful Oliver, because Pike was under the influence of the Talosians' mind powers.

[tdn]

Lily Taylor may not be known as a true Hollywood Beauty, but I think she's pretty hot. She was uglified in Dogfight, a movie that would have been more convincing had they cast a truly ugly woman in the lead role.

[Acsenray]

Mickey Rourke in Johnny Handsome and Sin City.

(Okay, he's not my idea of a really handsome guy, especially since he went in for pro boxing. I was shocked at his appearance on a recent David Letterman. It looked like he still had some of his Marv makeup on.)

Not really a handsome guy? Okay, he was handsome back in the 9 1/2 Weeks days. But today, my god, he's just as ugly as Marv in Sin City. They hardly had to do anything to him. If anything, the stylised visuals of the movie somewhat hid the true horror that is Mickey Rourke's monstrous visage (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000620/). As our antipodean friends might say, he's as ugly as a hatful of monkey's arseholes. He's continually bothered by swarms of spinster toads trying to kiss him in search of their cursed princes. After Rourke got beaten ugly, the ugly stick had to be sent back to the factory for mending.

[kunilou]

Raymond Massey (not a hunk, I'll grant, but not ugly) as the scarred older brotherpsycho killer in Arsenic and Old Lace

[vetbridge]

Count me as another who only noticed Cameron Diaz was actually attractive in Being John Malkovich.

I will 3rd that. Her hair frizz thing was different and although she was a nut, she was a hot not.

[Don Draper]

Bette Davis (never a glamourpuss, but IMHO strikingly attractive), Mr Skeffington (for later scenes so may not count) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (although she was past her best days she certainly wasn't as hideous as Jane Hudson)

Don't forget the dowdy, frumpy wallflower she played in Now, Voyager (although this is another role in which the actress merely takes off her glasses to become Beautiful.)


Pretty boy Jared Leto got his face bashed in (literally) and stayed that way for the last half of Fight Club.

Cher went from frumpy to knockout in Moonstruck. This was, of course, before she became a human waxwork and perennial "awful plastic surgery.com" featurette.

[Annie-Xmas]

Jeri Ryan didn't have much going for her as a Borg.

[Sam Stone]

Nicole Kidman playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Prosthetic nose and everything.

[romansperson]

Farrah Fawcett was decidely unglamorous in The Burning Bed.

[Larry Mudd]

Nicole Kidman playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Prosthetic nose and everything.I hate to cry "not ugly" more than once, but Virginia Woolf, in her prime, was smokin' (http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/rarebook/exhibitions/images/penandpress/large/4c_woolf_1902.jpg) -- and although the years weren't any kinder to her than they are to anyone, The Hours was much kinder. In the film, she was still beautiful when she went wading.


Grrr. Don't be talkin' sh*t about Ginny. :D

[pinkfreud]

The spectacularly handsome Laurence Olivier wore a fake nose, prosthetic warts, and a very unbecoming wig in Richard III.

[Acsenray]

Whereas when Gerard Depardieu put on a fake nose for Cyrano de Bergerac ...

... he looked pretty much the same.

[CalMeacham]

How about Jose Ferrer as Cyrano?

Or Steve Martin, for that matter?

[Wesley Clark]

Jeri Ryan didn't have much going for her as a Borg.

About 60,000 star trek fans with restraining orders would beg to differ.

[koeeoaddi]

Nastassja Kinski was supposed to be ugly as Susie the Bear in The Hotel New Hampshire. She wasn't, of course. A really bizarre casting choice.

[Annie-Xmas]

About 60,000 star trek fans with restraining orders would beg to differ.

You like baldheaded women with Borg implants and clunky armor? :eek:

[Acsenray]

You like baldheaded women with Borg implants and clunky armor? :eek:

And a grey, splotchy complexion?

[well he's back]

Regarding Johnny Depp - He may try to hide his extreme good looks, but I don't think he succeeds.


and re Jeri Ryan, she pretty much had to get a restraining order against her husband, if I recall. (He was caught out trying to sell her "services", without her consent. Apparently he thought there was a demand.)

[Acsenray]

and re Jeri Ryan, she pretty much had to get a restraining order against her husband, if I recall. (He was caught out trying to sell her "services", without her consent. Apparently he thought there was a demand.)

As much as I might celebrate the victory of Barack Obama, I would like to nip this one in the bud. So far as I know, Tim Ryan did express an interest in swinging, but Jeri Ryan said he never forced her to do anything she didn't agree to and when she said she didn't like it, it stopped.

[Fiver]

Jeffrey Hunter's only action-figure role was as the horribly deformed Jeremy Pike in Star Trek. That episode (the pilot rewritten and adapted into a two-parter)

Hunter appeared only as the handsome Pike in the scenes taken from the original pilot episode. The uglified Pike was played by Sean Kenney. But, the Vina character, played by Susan Oliver, was horribly deformed; however, in most of the scenes, she appeared as the beautiful Oliver, because Pike was under the influence of the Talosians' mind powers.
Also, Pike's first name was Christopher, not Jeremy.

And I believe Jeffrey Hunter was already dead when they made that episode, so it's almost a shame they didn't hire him to reprise the role.

[kevja]

Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

[FilmGeek]

Tangentially related, but Janeane Garofalo (http://www.sergioleone.net/mm-14.jpg) was supposed to be the ugly one in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. What? She's adorable.

She only thought of herself as the ugly one. She thought she was fat, short, dark and not as beautiful as the leggy blonde model (Uma Thurman).

Kevin Spacey (not a hunk, but pretty good looking) in the awful "Pay it Forward".

[well he's back]

Thanks for the correction, Ascenray.

[malkavia]

How about Benicio Del Toro (http://cine.eldiariomontanes.es/datos/protagonistas/fotos/protagonista300104f1.jpg) as Dr. Gonzo (http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0120669/fllv1.jpg) in Fear and Loathing?

[Rilchiam]

Lily Taylor may not be known as a true Hollywood Beauty, but I think she's pretty hot. She was uglified in Dogfight, a movie that would have been more convincing had they cast a truly ugly woman in the lead role.

I disagree with the bolded statement. I thought the idea was that to a bunch of horny Marines in 1963, anyone who didn't fit the mold was automatically ugly. The middle ground was far narrower in those days, and the kind of people who would host a "dogfight" would be pretty darn superficial to begin with.

Daryl Hannah was originally turned down for her role in Steel Magnolias, but showed up for an audition anyway, so thoroughly deglammed no one recognized her. Makes one wonder how a lot of famous beauties would look if they let themselves go.