Celebs Who Looked Drastically Different After A Role

Whether we're talking about an international pop star or a beloved award-winning actor, it's no secret that we love to follow a dramatic celebrity transformation. While some stars use plastic surgery to change their appearances, others choose to make significant adjustments to their lifestyles for health and wellness reasons. And, of course, there are the famous folk who are down to shake up their image because a role calls for it. 

Getting into character can mean digging into a character's motivations, inner struggles, and history. It can also mean undergoing major physical transformations. "Sometimes the physical can portray the psychological," Robert DeNiro once told The Guardian. "That's why I put on 60lb when I played Jake LaMotta in 'Raging Bull.' I had this fascination with the graphic deterioration of his character, which to me was symbolised by his physical decline. I didn't think using prosthetics would do the same thing."

Whether they got a drastic haircut or made changes to their physique, the following stars sure looked different after taking on certain roles. 

It's hard not to love Ariana Grande's style evolution, and her hair has been such a monumental piece of it all. Since she was cast as Glinda in "Wicked," the "Break Free" songstress has been sporting bright blonde locks, but long before she was a multi-award winning star, she was a brunette tween looking to make it big. Grande's dark curls haven't seen the light of day since she was on Nickelodeon's "Victorious," which debuted in 2010. On the sitcom, she played Cat Valentine, who was known for her airy speaking voice and vibrant red hair.

After years of difficult maintenance, "Victorious" ended and Grande could finally let her hair return to its natural color. When Grande headed to Nickelodeon's spinoff show "Sam & Cat," the network allowed her to wear a wig on top of her recovering tresses. Around that same time, her pop music career took off, and she soon became known for her ponytail and extensions. 

Grande's signature giant ponytail look was born out of necessity. "I had to bleach my hair and dye it red every other week for the first 4 years of playing Cat," she wrote on Facebook in 2014. "As one would assume, that completely destroyed my hair." At the time, she wasn't happy with the way her hair looked when she wore it down. 

Many celebrities have completely transformed their look with a haircut, from Taylor Swift's bob to Kaley Cuoco's big chop. However, there was one hairstyle that got everybody talking in 2010: Emma Watson's pixie cut. She was just a kid when she signed on to star in the "Harry Potter" franchise, and she had little to no autonomy over her hair for a decade. The English star had to keep her hair long for the role, so when the movies finally wrapped for good, she lopped it all off.

In an August 2010 chat with Entertainment Weekly Watson said there was never a moment where she second-guessed her choice to part ways with her long tresses. Rather, she was ready to say goodbye to Hermione Granger and start her next chapter. "It was weird. My hairdresser was like, 'When are you going to freak out?' Most people cry or go into shock,' but I was very calm," she said." I knew it was the right thing." 

While this change apparently wasn't everyone's cup of tea, Watson didn't seem to mind. In September of 2012, she told Glamour, "The majority of the boys around me were like, 'Why did you do that? That's such an error.' And I was like, 'Well, honestly, I don't really care what you think!'"

Method actors like Jeremy Strong and Daniel Day-Lewis have been known to go above and beyond to truly get into a role. Among these committed stars is Christian Bale who, time and again, has transformed himself physically for a number of projects. In 2003, the "American Psycho" star lost 60 pounds to play an emaciated insomniac in "The Machinist." He stuck to a strict diet of water, coffee, and a single apple per day.

In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Bale called the severe physical transformation "amazing." "When you're so skinny that you can hardly walk up a flight of stairs ... you're, like, this being of pure thought. It's like you've abandoned your body," he said. "That's the most Zen-like state I've ever been in my life." Of course, the actor couldn't maintain this physique — even if he'd wanted to — because he'd signed on for Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins," which began filming just six months after "The Machinist" wrapped.

To play the DC superhero for the first time, Bale packed on 100 pounds in just months. While he managed to put on enough muscle for the film, he has said that his change in diet was probably a bit too drastic. As he told HuffPost (via Men's Health), "I overdid it because I was enjoying gorging. ... I was straight into pizza and ice-cream and eating five meals in a sitting."

Since her breakout role in 2001's "The Princess Diaries," Anne Hathaway has undergone a stunning physical transformation, as has her career. After her Disney movie debut, she went on to work alongside Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada," and then showed off her pipes in 2012's "Les Misérables." 

In it, Hathaway played Fantine, a young woman who cuts and sells her hair to pay for a skirt for her daughter. When it was time to film the haircut scene, Hathaway didn't wear a wig or rely on any sort of special effects. Rather, her real-life tresses got a major chop. "I went to Tom Hooper the director, and I said, 'Listen, we're actors singing live in a movie and ... audiences aren't used to that, and I think we need to make it real for them. We need to show them that we all left that pound of flesh on the floor, basically,'" Hathaway recalled on a 2023 episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show."

Clearly, Hathaway's commitment to the scene worked in her favor, as the performance earned her an Oscar. What's more, the following year, Hathaway's new look was named "The Most Influential Haircut of All Time."

Actors Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis know what it's like to undergo serious training for a role. To prepare for Darren Aronofsky's 2010 film "Black Swan," both stars not only had to study ballet, but lose a significant amount of weight. Kunis ended up dropping down to just 95 pounds, which she partially attributed to a strict diet of 1,200 calories or less a day.

But, as she explained on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2016, she used another method as well. "I'm not promoting this at all. I used to be a smoker and so I smoked a lot of cigarettes and I ate a limited amount of calories," Kunis said. She has fortunately given up the habit, and when filming wrapped, she was able to put some weight back on.

As Kunis told Harper's Bazaar in March 2012, "When I got down to 95 pounds, I was muscles, like a little brick house, but skin and bones. When I gained it back, it went to completely different areas." When the interviewer asked if she meant her rear, the "Date Night" star replied, "No, I'd be happy if my ass got bigger. All the weight that left my chest went to my side hip, my stomach."

Unless you watched "Everwood" or "The O.C.," you probably first fell in love with Chris Pratt as the bumbling Andy Dwyer on NBC's "Parks and Recreation." For five of the seven seasons, he maintained a less muscular physique for the character. That all changed when Pratt got the call to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As he told Men's Health U.K. in 2015 (via E! News), he had some experience with changing his physical appearance for movie roles, but up until that point, those transformations didn't stick. 

"I'd gone back and forth, lost weight for 'Moneyball,' got fat again, then trimmed down for 'Zero Dark Thirty,' then gained it all back again for Andy. That's when I saw 'Zero Dark Thirty' and right after walking out I was like, 'I'm going to get in shape and I'm never going to be fat again,'" Pratt explained. Once he landed his role in "Guardians of the Galaxy," he started packing on the muscle.

In 2015, "Parks and Rec" creator Mike Schur told Rolling Stone that Pratt's MCU transformation definitely raised some questions in the show universe. "It's very hard to explain why Andy Dwyer now looks like a superhero," he said. They did what they could, and there was a quick joke on Season 6 of the show about how Andy lost 50 pounds after he stopped drinking beer.

Jonah Hill started his weight loss journey in 2011, and the Oscar-nominated actor's look has gone through a lot of changes since. He slimmed down for 2014's "22 Jump Street," and then gained 40 pounds to play Efraim Diveroli in 2016's "War Dogs." After filming wrapped in 2015, he began cutting weight. By 2017, he'd dropped a significant amount of weight — so much so, a number of outlets called him "unrecognizable."

In a March 2017 interview with ABC News (via Mirror), Hill opened up about these changes and how he lost so much weight so quickly. "I wish there was some crazy thing that I did, like a pill or a genie or something, but I went to see a nutritionist, and he told me what to eat to change my habits and stuff. I found that Japanese food was very helpful to me," he said. What's more, he reached out to his "21 Jump Street" co-star for some tips. As Hill shared on an episode of "The Tonight Show" (via CNN), he asked Channing Tatum diet and exercise really make a difference. "Yes, you dumb mother****er," Tatum said, according to Hill. "It's the simplest thing in the entire world."

Millie Bobby Brown hadn't been acting for long when she landed the role of Eleven on Netflix's smash hit sci-fi horror series "Stranger Things." The role required the young actor, who was just 12 years old at the time, to shave her head. In a January 2018 interview with W Magazine, Brown reflected on the significance of that haircut. "The day I shaved my head was the most empowering moment of my whole life," she said. "I couldn't hide behind my hair like I used to." It took some time for the actor's hair to grow back, but it worked for the show. Sure, Eleven has powers, but she can't make her tresses long again with the snap of a finger.

While her hair was short, Brown had to find other ways to express herself. As she explained to PopSugar in August 2019, "Makeup became something I used to show my femininity because I had no hair. Girls can feel like their hair defines who they are, whereas for me, it couldn't."

In Season 4, fans saw Eleven sport another buzz cut. Naturally, fans wondered if Brown got another drastic haircut for "Stranger Things." However, this time around, the styling department created an ultra-realistic wig for the actor to wear. That way, she could keep her hair at its current length. 

After making her runway debut in 2011, Cara Delevingne's career went through a stunning transformation. The model made her silver screen debut in 2012's "Anna Karenina," and she went on to start making music. She also established herself as a bona fide style icon who can pull off just about any hairstyle. 

In 2017, Delevingne shaved off her long golden locks for "Life in a Year." In the 2020 film, which also stars Jaden Smith, she plays a teenager who has cancer and wears a number of colorful wigs. In real life, Delevingne embraced her extra short hair, even painting her head silver for the Met Gala that year. When her hair grew out a bit, she rocked a bleached pixie cut. 

In a July 2017 chat with Women's Wear Daily, Delevingne noted the ways in which this new look encouraged her to explore new sides of her own style. "I'm preferring more to wear dresses and such, because I get to look at my femininity in a different way," she remarked, describing shaving her head as "liberating." The model-turned-actor went on to say that she was still getting used to her hair not being there, but that the lack of "upkeep" was the best part so far. Finally, Delevingne explained that she hoped to spread an important message of "not needing hair to be beautiful."

Lady Gaga might've begun her career as a flashy, hair bow-wearing pop star who cranked out dance hits, but after she signed on to play Ally in 2018's "A Star is Born," her style went through a transformation. Once upon a time, the "Bad Romance" singer would show up to glitzy events in meat dresses, absurdly tall platform shoes, and brightly-colored wigs. However, while promoting "A Star is Born," the pop icon went full Old Hollywood glamour. 

There was the silver Givenchy Haute Couture gown she wore to the "A Star is Born" premiere. There was the demure white maxi dress she sported at the Venice Film Festival in 2018. And of course, there was the beyond elegant black Alexander McQueen dress she rocked on the red carpet of the 2019 Academy Awards.

Gaga looked totally different in the movie, too. In October 2018, "A Star is Born" costume designer Erin Benbach spoke with Fashionista about making sure Ally's wardrobe felt like its own thing. "We worked really hard to create a character that didn't have any Gaga in it," she said. What's more, Gaga dyed her hair brown for the role, but that look didn't stick for long. "I literally dyed my hair blonde the night that we stopped shooting because I wanted to get out of it as soon as possible because there is ... some tremendous emotion and tragedy, so I wanted to get her out," she said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" (via People).

The MCU has been responsible for a number of actors' body transformations, from Chris Pratt to Michael B. Jordan. In 2019, it was Kumail Nanjiani's turn. Before diving into the MCU, he was known for playing Dinesh on the HBO series "Silicon Valley." In December 2019, about a week after the "Silicon Valley" series finale aired, Nanjiani shared some shirtless snaps on Instagram. 

"I found out a year ago I was going to be in Marvel's 'Eternals' and decided I wanted to transform how I looked," Nanjiani wrote in the caption. He also noted that without the trainers and nutritionists the studio set him up with, it wouldn't have been possible for him to change so drastically. "I'm glad I look like this, but I also understand why I never did before," he wrote. The post went viral soon after.

Although playing Kingo in the Marvel film was a huge opportunity for him, the "Welcome to Chippendales" star eventually revealed to NPR in December 2022 that having his transformation photos go viral was bittersweet. "It felt, for a brief moment, powerful. And then after that, it was by and large negative. ... It felt naked, it felt vulnerable," Nanjiani shared. He also told the outlet that he's always had a complicated relationship with food, and that filming "Eternals" brought a lot of issues up for him.

Since his breakout role in Disney's "High School Musical," we've seen Zac Efron transform a number of times. From his teen heartthrob days to his somewhat edgy platinum blond vibe, the actor has debuted several looks over the years — but perhaps none more so than when he put on 15 pounds of muscle to play Kevin Von Erich in "The Iron Claw." Efron became obsessive, as he told Extra TV in December 2023, "I think I had like six, seven months to prep for the movie and I allowed it to take over my life. That became my primary goal, it was just kind of centered around achieving that aesthetic."

The fixation on evolving his physique wasn't new to Efron, as he'd previously put on muscle mass for 2017's "Baywatch." Back then, his methods unfortunately resulted in the actor developing insomnia and depression, but it seems like he was able to find a better way to prepare for the role this time around. However, as Efron explained to Deadline in January 2024, it might be a while before he takes on such a demanding role. "I don't think I'll ever be the same after playing Kevin. It definitely changed me; I'm still coming back to Zac," he said.