Sometimes when you’re watching a movie, you just can’t quite figure out who the actor is because of a great prosthetics job. Here’s a look at 40 times an actor was unrecognizable because of the great work of the makeup department.
Boris Karloff as The Monster in “Frankenstein” (1931)
Charles Laughton as Quasimodo in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939)
John Hurt as John Merrick in “The Elephant Man” (1980)
Louis Gosset Jr.as Drac in “Enemy Mine” (1985)
John Matuszak as Sloth in “The Goonies” (1985)
Tim Curry as The Lord of Darkness in “Legend” (1985)
Eric Stoltz as Rocky Dennis in “Mask” (1985)
Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle in “The Fly” (1986)
Eddie Murphy as Saul in “Coming to America” (1988)
Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprice in “Dick Tracy” (1990)
Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch in “The Witches” (1990)
John Leguizamo as Spawn in “Spawn” (1997)
Jim Carrey as The Grinch in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000)
Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck in “Shadow of the Vampire” (2000)
Warwick Davis as Griphook in the “Harry Potter” movies (2001-2011)
Gary Oldman as Mason Verger in “Hannibal” (2001)
Helena Bonham Carter as Ari in “Planet of the Apes” (2001)
Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom in “Fantastic Four” (2005)
Nick Stahl as Roark Junior in “Sin City” (2005)
Doug Jones as Pale Man in “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006)
Benicio Del Toro as Lawrence Talbot in “The Wolfman” (2010)
Hugo Weaving as Red Skull in “Captain America” (2011)
Alexis Denisof as The Other in “The Avengers” (2012)
Christopher Eccleston as Malekith in “Thor: The Dark World” (2013)
Famke Janssen as Muriel in “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” (2013)
Johnny Knoxville in “Bad Grandpa” (2013)
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc in “Suicide Squad” (2016)
Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse in “X-men: Apocalypse” (2016)
Idris Elba as Krall in “Star Trek: Beyond” (2016)
Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise in “It” (2017)
Joel Edgerton as Nick Jakoby in “Bright” (2017)
Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour”
Michael Rosenbaum as Martinex in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (2017)
Michael James Shaw as Corvus Glaive in “The Avengers: Infinity War” (2018)
Tilda Swinton as Dr. Jozef Klemperer in “Suspiria” (2018)
David Harbour as Hellboy in “Hellboy” (2019)
John Lithgow as Roger Ailes in “Bombshell” (2019)
Ben Mendelsohn as Talos in “Captain Marvel” (2019)
Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci in “House of Gucci” (2021)
Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp in “Impeachment: American Crime Story” (2021)
Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (2021)
Colin Farrell as Penguin in “The Batman” (2022)
Emma Thompson as Miss Agatha Trunchbull in “Matilda the Musical” (2022)
Renée Zellweger as Pam Hupp in “The Thing About Pam” (2022)
Brendan Fraser as Charlie in “The Whale” (2022)
Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro” (2023)
Helen Mirren as Golda Meir in “Golda” (2023)
Jesse Eisenberg as Male in “Sasquatch Sunset” (2024)
Walton Goggins as the Ghoul in “Fallout” (2024)
