Sometimes, actors do the unthinkable to help prepare for acting roles, from completely changing their public images, shaving their hair, or even beginning an extreme journey of weight gain or loss. The late great Heath Ledger, for example, had infamously locked himself in a London hotel for a month and "slammed himself around" to portray the villainous Joker in The Dark Knight, which posthumously gave him an Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor.
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These actors are a different story, though, as they had to portray the opposite gender in their respective films. This definitely isn't a simple task, as the star's acting abilities have to reach a totally new spectrum of gender. Without discrediting the makeup and wardrobe departments, here are some of the actors who masterfully played the opposite gender in the previous role.
7 Cillian Murphy, 'Breakfast On Pluto'
This may be hard to believe for many, but Cillian Murphy, the same actor behind the testosterone-boosting World War I veteran Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders, once portrayed the opposite gender in Breakfast on Pluto. The 2005 comedy-drama film entails the struggle of Patrick "Kitten" Braden, an Irish teenager who identifies as a woman, as he seeks acceptance during the peak of 1960s conservative in England.
The actor had to spend weeks with a real-life drag queen to study women's body language and learn how to dress. He ended up landing a nomination for Best Actor for Musical or Comedy from the Golden Globe Award the year after.
6 Jared Leto, 'Dallas Buyers Club'
In Dallas Buyers Club, Jared Leto, who is known for his extreme dedication to "method acting," portrayed a drug-addicted, HIV-positive trans woman. He went on to reveal that he lost 30 pounds, waxed his entire body, shaved his eyebrows, and recalled his experience with his Los Angeles roommate who died of AIDS in 1991.
"It’s kind of hard to let go because you make an enormous commitment. Any time you commit like that, at least for me, it’s hard to stop. It takes a little while sometimes," he recalled his weight loss journey in an interview with Collider, adding, "I remember eating again can start to be a little like you think you’re going to eat a big meal, but you can’t, because you take half a bite and you’re full."
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5 John Travolta, 'Hairspray'
In 2007, Grease star, John Travolta took on another popular musical - Hairspray. Only this time, Travolta wasn't playing the hunky male lead, he portrayed Edna Turnblad, the overweight mother to the rebellious Tracy Turnblad. Traditionally, the role of Edna Turnblad is cast with a male actor.
In order to become Edna, John Travolta had to undergo five hours of makeup every day and wear a 30-pound fat suit. "Fortunately it was skin tight to my actual frame," Travolta said, according to ABC News. "Anytime I moved, it moved, and that was quintessential because if there had been any lag or you know, any other kind of thing happening that would be awful."
4 Angelina Jolie, 'Salt'
Salt takes its audience to the story of highly-trained agent Evelyn Salt, played by Angelina Jolie, and her attempt to clear her name after being heavily accused of being a double agent for the KGB. While the film's final script itself does not explicitly mention the role belongs to Jolie's opposite gender, the film's writer, Kurt Wimmer, originally penned the story with a male lead, with Tom Cruise in mind.
It was subsequently re-written, but the actress still had to put in hours of makeup and prosthetics for several scenes, especially during the part of her disguise to the White House as a Czech NATO liaison man.
3 Amanda Bynes, 'She's The Man'
Let's recall Amanda Bynes in She's the Man. The actress plays the role of Viola Hasting, a potty mouth teenager who's desperate enough to join her school's football team despite being for "boys only." As expected, she ends up impersonating her brother Sebastian to get a part in the team. Despite its lackluster critical performance, She's the Man was among some of the greatest comedies of the 2000s.
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"When the movie came out and I saw it, I went into a deep depression for four to six months because I didn't like how I looked when I was a boy," Bynes told Paper Magazine, revealing that she struggled with her body image as a result of the movie's outcome.
2 Eddie Murphy, 'The Nutty Professor'
Back in 1996, Eddie Murphy put his acting career to the test with The Nutty Professor, the remake of the 1963 film of the same name follows the story of Sherman Klumb, a kind-hearted academic lecturer who is excessively obese. Wanting to win the affection of his dream girl, he develops miraculous medicine for weight loss. In this film though, the actor portrays not one, but seven characters, including his maternal grandmother and both of his parents.
1 Willem Dafoe, 'The Boondock Saints'
Lastly, there's Willem Dafoe in The Boondock Saints back in 1999 up in drag during a cover-up scene where his character, FBI special agent Paul Smecker, has to perform his stealth duties in the crime-ridden city of Boston. Unfortunately, though, Dafoe's big name in Hollywood couldn't stop the vigilante action-thriller film from failing at the box office, amassing only $30k out of its $6 million budget. Nonetheless, he would go on to rise from the dead and reprise the role in its sequel, The Boondock Saints II, in 2009.
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