You’d be forgiven for not realizing that the villain in “X-Men: Apocalypse” is played by none other than Oscar Isaac, given all the blue makeup that is caked on his face. But he’s not the first, nor will he be the last, star to be completely transformed on the big screen, which traditionally came via makeup but is increasingly created by state-of-the-art performance-capture technology.
Oscar Isaac is the big bad Apocalypse in “X-Men: Apocalypse,” uglifying him in a way we never thought possible.
Despite that stellar makeup job, Idris Elba is at least still recognizable in “Star Trek Beyond” thanks to his incredibly distinctive voice.
Remember that little orange lady from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”? Yep, that’s Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o in there.
“Avatar” was technologically shocking in a lot of ways, not the least of which was Zoe Saldana’s performance as Neytiri.
Eddie Murphy has done a lot of transformative roles, including in “The Nutty Professor” and the infamous “Norbit,” which was thought to cost him an Oscar for “Dreamgirls.”
In Tim Burton‘s 2001 remake of “Planet of the Apes,” there were a bunch of well known actors secreted away under ape makeup, including Tim Roth (pictured), Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Clarke Duncan.
John Leguizamo embodied one of the most terrifying looking movie clowns ever in “Spawn.”
Charlize Theron took on the role of Aileen Wuornos in “Monster” with both an actual transformation of her body as well as stellar makeup work to top it off. Theron won the Best Actress Oscar for the performance.
A lot of folks watched “Tropic Thunder” without ever realizing Tom Cruise was in it, even while his character, the devious film agent Les Grossman, stole the show.
Tim Curry plays the evil Lord of Darkness in the Ridley Scott fantasy “Legend” and, well, you can see from the picture exactly how traumatic that was for everyone who watched it. In a good way, of course.
Gary Oldman appeared in the film “Hannibal” as the horribly mutilated Mason Verger, and we were none the wiser.
Maybe the most shocking transformation on this list, actress Glenn Close popped up briefly in Steven Spielberg‘s “Hook” as a bearded male pirate.
Of course this list had to include John Hurt starring in David Lynch‘s 1980 film “The Elephant Man,” about the famously deformed 19th century Englishman. The Academy Awards created the “Makeup and Hairstyling” award in 1981 because of this movie.
Unlike the other folks on this list, Andy Serkis is really best known for his motion capture performances. Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” films was the big one, but he’s been remarkable beneath a CGI overlay a number of other times, including “King Kong” and the two most recent “Planet of the Apes” films. Oh, and let’s not forget his appearance as Supreme Leader Snoke in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
The legacy of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels probably lies entirely with Bill Nighy’s incredible Davy Jones at this point.
June’s “Warcraft” movie has a lot of people playing big green orcs with tusks, including Clancy Brown as Blackhand (pictured).
Johnny Depp‘s goofy prosthetic nose pops up right in the middle of Kevin Smith‘s “Tusk” and now it’s all anyone remembers about that movie.
“Sin City” is best remembered for its wild style of CGI, but it also contained some excellent makeup on star Mickey Rourke.
The emotionless blue visage of Dr. Manhattan in “Watchmen” had a real face underneath: Billy Crudup’s, in fact.
“I, Robot” contained a lot of identical looking CGI robots, but one of them, Sonny, was powered by none other than Alan Tudyk.
Usually, performance capture is something we see in big budget, serious movies, but Seth Rogen as the titular stoner alien in the R-rated comedy “Paul” is a rare exception.
Yes, Smaug the dragon in those “Hobbit” movies was a performance capture role, with Benedict Cumberbatch actually acting as the dragon.
“John Carter” has been mostly forgotten for everything it did aside from being a huge box office flop, but, hey, it’s important to remember that time Willem Dafoe played a CGI Martian.
