Stars Who've Gone Ugly

One of the most revered names in the business, British actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson can do it all. She’s been nominated for an astonishing five Oscars, winning Best Actress in 1992 for Howards End and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1995 for Sense and Sensibility. In the latter, she was wooed by British heartthrob Hugh Grant, and she even portrayed a sultry seductress in then-husband Kenneth Branagh’s 1991 film noir Dead Again. But as stern caretaker Nanny McPhee in the 2005 film of the same name, Thompson sported a protruding bulbous nose, unibrow, snaggletooth, and multiple giant warts dotting her normally striking face. She’s reprising her role as the hideous-looking nanny in the sequel, Nanny McPhee Returns, which opens this weekend. “It’s been done. Mary Poppins—narcissist, my view,” Thompson joked to The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. “When I look at you,” the talk-show host retorted, “I don’t see the tooth and the eyebrow. I see glamour.”

Jemal Countess / Getty Images; Universal Pictures

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Despite his wild, frowned-upon public antics, no one tends to question Tom Cruise when it comes to looks. Named People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1990 and one of Empire Magazine’s 100 Sexiest Stars in film history, the actor was married to Nicole Kidman for 10 years and dated sexy Spanish actress Penelope Cruz, before marrying Katie Holmes in 2006. For his “comeback role” of sorts as egotistical, hip-hop-loving movie mogul Les Grossman in 2008’s Tropic Thunder, Cruise donned a large prosthetic set of hands, a bald cap, and a mat of unsightly chest hair as he dirty danced his way back into public consciousness.The actor recently reproduced the signature moves for the 2010 MTV Movie Awards with Jennifer Lopez and the performance stole the show. Cruise-gone-ugly will emerge once again in the upcoming, untitled Les Grossman movie. Seemingly, the unsightly look suits Cruise, who was once better known for donning an oversize button-down shirt and tighty whiteys in Risky Business. For now, the career upgrade is in Cruise’s (or Grossman’s) hands. “It was fun walking on set and seeing the crew, looking around like, ‘What is going on?’” Cruise told The New York Times of his not-so-attractive appearance. “I just wanted that moving of those hands and the crushing the Diet Cokes… there’s just something about it that I thought would be funny.”

Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images; Dreamworks / The Kobal Collection

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The fourth-generation actress from the esteemed Barrymore family has been melting audience’s hearts since 1982’s E.T.. Later, in the early 1990s, the once-cutesy actress turned heads as a wanton seductress in Poison Ivy and as the sexy Swedish receptionist in Wayne’s World 2. In the 1999 film Never Been Kissed, Barrymore took on the less spicy role of Josie Geller—a lonely, 25-year-old copy editor for the Chicago Sun-Times who goes undercover as a high schooler for a story at her alma mater. In the process, she’s forced to come to terms with her not-so-halcyon high-school years, when she was known as “Josie Grossie”—a fashion-impaired, greasy-haired girl with braces who was the constant butt of her classmates’ cruel jokes and pranks. “I’m not Josie Grossie anymore!” the grown-up Geller yells at the top of her lungs during a pivotal point of the film. Despite her current movie-star looks, the swan-like tale hit close to home for Barrymore. “I gained all of this weight, I was perming my hair, and I was just trying to do everything I could to fit in!” she told People magazine of her desperate days from age 8 to 14.

Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images; 20th Century Fox / Everett

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Tall and fiery-haired with a gorgeous porcelain complexion, Nicole Kidman has long been considered one of Hollywood’s biggest stunners, earning a spot on People’s Most Beautiful list eight times. She first caught the public’s eye as one-half of a Hollywood power couple during her 10-year marriage to Tom Cruise and later romanced rocker Lenny Kravitz before tying the knot with country singer Keith Urban in 2006. Kidman initially won over audiences as sexy weather lady-cum-femme fatale Suzanne Moretto in Gus Van Sant’s 1995 film To Die For and bared all—literally and figuratively—in the 1999 Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut with then-husband Cruise. Three years later, however, Kidman starred in the role that finally earned her critical accolades—and a monster schnoz. When Denzel Washington pronounced her the Best Actress winner at the 2002 Oscar ceremony “ by a nose” for her portrayal of author Virginia Woolf in The Hours, he wasn’t kidding. It took makeup artists two-and-a-half hours to fit Kidman with her prosthetic nose each day on set. “When I had the nose on, I wasn’t recognized at all,” Kidman told UGO. “The photographers would be outside my trailer and I would use a different name and no one had any idea it was me.”

Jason Merritt / Getty Images; Paramount / Everett

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Though by no means an onscreen ladykiller, Billy Crystal did manage to win over Meg Ryan—at the peak of her adorableness—in the 1989 romantic-comedy classic, When Harry Met Sally. But for 1987’s The Princess Bride, Crystal’s earlier collaboration with director Rob Reiner, the actor was cast in the role of Miracle Max—an eccentric wizard with a Yiddish accent who is tasked with reviving the movie’s romantic hero, Westley. Crystal is borderline unrecognizable amid the slanted prosthetic nose, Einstein-esque hair, and aging makeup used to capture the look of the elderly magic man. “Max was easy in that I had relatives like him,” Crystal said on the Blu-ray DVD extras of the film. “In creating this guy, my makeup master Peter Montagna and I talked about what he should look like that could be different. I said, ‘Well, he should look like a cross between Casey Stengel, who was the old Yankee manager, and my grandmother.' ” We think it’s safe to say he hit an oy-worthy home run.

Ron Galella, WireImage / Getty Images; 20th Century Fox / Everett

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After a series of critically maligned roles at the turn of the century, a change was in order for former model and ballet dancer Charlize Theron. In a risky move, the stunning South African actress decided to shave her eyebrows and gain between 25 and 30 pounds for the role of lesbian serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the 2003 indie film, Monster. Theron sported a heavy dose of makeup to capture Wuornos’ freckled, mottled-discoloration look, as well as dark contacts, greasy hair, and fake yellow teeth to completely lose herself in the role. But it was worth it when Theron ultimately earned an Oscar for Best Actress for her startling transformation. “I was so concerned early on in the process with the physical aspect of it, because in diving into the emotional aspect of it so much,” Theron told CBS News. “When I saw it and when I see it today, I’m just really proud of what Toni G, our makeup artist, did.”

Paul Redmond, WireImage / Getty Images; Newmarket / Everett

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Mariah Carey has never been one to suppress her inner or outer diva. The singer/actress reportedly requires two people in her entourage to lower her onto a talk-show sofa in order to insure that her dress doesn’t get crushed, the New York Daily News once reported. But after Carey’s 2001 film Glitter won her the Worst Actress Razzie Award, she realized she needed to take a non-sparkly approach to her acting career. Midway through 2009’s harrowing film Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, a rayon-clad, makeup-less, slightly mustachioed Carey appeared on the screen as social worker Mrs. Weiss. Director Lee Daniels reportedly insisted Mariah’s breasts be bound and added bags beneath her eyes to ensure audiences weren’t distracted by the typically glamorous pop star’s presence. “I wasn't just de-glamorized,” Carey told Us Weekly. “They added some hideousness on top of that too. I drank some ugly juice.”

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With his handsome face and piercing blue eyes, Jared Leto captured the heart of Claire Danes’ Angela Chase—and an entire generation of teenage girls—as dreamboat Jordan Catalano in the short-lived, cult-followed 1994 MTV series My So-Called Life. Since then, the actor and musician has gone through a number of on-and-off-screen transformations, including a bleached blond look for 1999’s Fight Club and heavy eye-shadow as the frontman of screamo band 30 Seconds to Mars. But his most un-Catalano turn came in the 2007 film Chapter 27, for which Leto packed on 60 pounds to portray deranged Lennon assassin Mark David Chapman. “I gorged and force-fed myself,” Leto told the New York Daily News. “I don't know if it was gout—but I had a definite problem with my feet… [But] it was important to make that transformation because I thought his physical representation of himself was an indication of who he was.” Unfortunately, though the Ugly Duckling story worked for Kidman, Theron, and Carey, critics weren’t biting Leto’s unglamorous role. Perhaps he should stick to the eyeliner.

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images; Peace Arch Films / Everett

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After getting her start as a barrio-dwelling teen with self-image issues in the acclaimed 2002 independent film Real Women Have Curves, America Ferrera continued to champion that mantra. In 2006, she was cast in the lead role of Betty Suarez in the ABC TV series Ugly Betty. Sporting massive braces, bushy eyebrows, blunt bangs, and that notorious Guadalajara poncho, Ferrera had to engage in a reverse-beautification ritual every day on the otherwise glamorous set. “She's a gorgeous girl with an incredible style sensibility in her personal life,” hair department head Roddy Stayton told USA Today. “What we do is ‘Bettify’ her in the morning,” he added, using a term Ferrara herself coined. “It's in contrast to the rest of the show, where everybody else is glammed up.” And it was Ferrera who had the last laugh, becoming the first ever TV actress to win all three major lead actress awards—an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards—in a single year in 2007. But dimming down her star factor is Ferrera’s ideal route to take. “It’s always nice at the end of the day to take the wig off and take my makeup off and just be myself,” she told People magazine. “But I am more comfortable being Betty than being on a red carpet all glammed up.”

Andy Kropa / Getty Images; Bob D'Amico, ABC / Everett

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With her deep-timbered voice, no-nonsense attitude, and ubiquitous cigarette, the late Bette Davis is one of cinema’s most iconic leading ladies. She racked up 10 Academy Award nominations—including wins for Dangerous and Jezebel—and is ranked No. 2 on the American Film Institute’s list of Greatest Female Screen Legends. The All About Eve star once remarked, “I always look put together. I think you can be very, very disappointing to a lot of people... I always see to it that I look well.” Well, not always. In 1961, allegedly under heavy financial pressure, Davis accepted the part—and accompanying $100,000 paycheck—of besotted hag Apple Annie in Frank Capra’s rags-to-riches remake, Pocketful of Miracles. The role required the typically glam Davis to don disheveled hair, bushy eyebrows, blemished makeup, and layers upon layers of rags. Despite the act of professional desperation, Davis is still remembered as the glamorous dame she was. Not for nothing, her sultry looks did inspire Kim Carnes’ 1981 pop hit, “Bette Davis Eyes.”

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