12 '90s Heartthrobs Who De-Glamorized For A Role
- 142 VOTESPhoto: Warner Bros. Pictures
In 1999, American audiences were introduced to a new handsome actor from Australia named Heath Ledger. The blond-haired, sweet Aussie instantly obtained '90s heartthrob status with his winning turn as Patrick Verona in the popular high school romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You.
Ledger proved his acting chops over the next few years. One of his most impressive performances came as a closeted gay cowboy in Ang Lee's Academy Award-winning Western, Brokeback Mountain. However, it was his villainous turn as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 sequel The Dark Knight that impressed movie audiences and critics alike.
To play the Joker, Ledger needed to erase his golden looks. Makeup artist John Caglione Jr. wanted to design the actor's makeup to reflect the Joker's psychotic mental state. Caglione wondered, “What if this guy slept in his makeup? You know, this psychopath. [What] if he didn’t spruce up his makeup for two or three weeks? You know he never changes his clothes.”
Ledger's Joker sported smeared paint that made him appear unstable and dangerous. The method actor actually slept in the makeup and would not retouch it for weeks. The completely unglamorous look and Ledger's Academy Award-winning performance all helped to make his homicidal Joker one of the most infamous superhero comic book movie villains of all time.
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Johnny Depp reached a whole new level of Generation X teen-idol fame when he starred as undercover police officer Tom Hanson in the small-screen hit drama 21 Jump Street. The actor became a staple on the cover of '90s fan mags like Teen Beat and Tiger Beat.
The admittedly shy Depp apparently didn't enjoy the attention, nor did he want the fame that came with being a male pinup. "I don't want to make a career of taking my shirt off," Depp told Rolling Stone in 1988. "I'd like to shave off all my hair, even my eyebrows, try it that way. I don't fault the TV stars who do teen magazines. They took ahold of their situation, took offers that gave them the big money fast - but they were dead in two years. I don't want that."
Quirky director extraordinaire Tim Burton helped Depp shake off the teeny-bopper image when he cast the handsome actor against type in movies like Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands. Depp continued this offbeat character streak in non-mainstream films for most of his career.
The three-time Academy Award nominee had to go full-transformation mode for his role as monstrous Irish mob boss Whitey Bulger in the 2015 biopic Black Mass. In the film, Depp worked with his regular collaborator, makeup designer Joel Harlow.
Harlow describes the painstaking process of turning a movie star with matinee idol looks into a balding, homicidal, unhinged Mafia boss:
The movie hinged on the makeup being believable. When you zoom in close, you don’t want to see lace, so we punched the hair into the silicone so it looked like it was coming out of the skin. He’s got a prosthetic that goes from his cheeks and the bottom of his nose to the middle of his head. His eyebrows were covered so they are false eyebrows. Each hair was individually punched into the prosthetic each time before it was put on. There were about 45 forehead pieces that needed to be done … and each took 22 hours to do.
Changing Depp's eye color from brown to blue was also important to the film's story. "There is something in the eyes that speaks of a darkness, and that’s what we were trying to achieve," added Harlow.
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After he grabbed the entire world's attention with his star-making turn as Southern lawyer Jake Tyler Brigance in 1996's A Time to Kill, McConaughey languished for a few years trying to find his groove. Then in 2001, The Wedding Planner hit the silver screen, turning the actor into an early-2000s rom-com go-to. McConaughey, who was often given the opportunity to take his shirt off in these delightful love stories, found success with several additional romantic comedies like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, and Fool's Gold.
In 2005, People awarded the matinee idol the honor of being labeled the "Sexiest Man Alive."
McConaughey may have enjoyed the financial success of playing the standard rom-com role of the ridiculously handsome, cocky womanizer. However, the Texan wanted more from acting. He revealed in his 2020 memoir Greenlights that he turned down a $14.5 million rom-com paycheck. His new goal was to make darker films.
One of the key parts of the McConaissance that arrived in the early 2010s was his Academy Award-winning performance as an AIDS-infected Texan named Ron Woodroof in the 2013 biopic Dallas Buyers Club. The actor lost 50 pounds in just five months so he could believably play a man diagnosed with stage 4 HIV/AIDS. His hulking muscles were gone and his face was completely shrunken. The rom-com leading man with the six-pack abs was nowhere in sight.
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Tom Cruise became an official heartthrob in the 1980s with winning roles in Risky Business and Top Gun. His contagious smile, all-American looks, and box office bankability made him an instant movie star. He was enshrined in the sexy hall of fame in 1990 when People officially declared him the "Sexiest Man Alive."
Cruise has made a living putting mega franchises on his back and carrying them to billions of dollars. He's made six (and counting) Mission: Impossible movies. However, Cruise can really act. He also has a good sense of humor and great comic timing.
The 2008 fourth-wall-crashing action-comedy Tropic Thunder parodies a group of spoiled actors who are in the process of making a Vietnam War movie called Tropic Thunder. Cruise, who is friends with writer-director Ben Stiller, saw the script at Stiller's house and wanted to play the Les Grossman character. Grossman is the studio executive in charge of making Tropic Thunder. He is profane, loud, surly, and disagreeable.
Cruise revealed he told Stiller, "I want to play this character. I said, ‘I want to have fat hands, and I’m gonna dance.’ And he looked at me, he was like, ‘What?’"
At first, Stiller didn't get what Cruise was dishing. Cruise recalled:
He said, "Look, are you sure you can’t just be you? Like, look like you and do it?"
I said, "No, no, no, man, I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to play this character." So then I did the makeup test, we’ve tested the fat hands, you know, and the whole look, and so we’re doing the wardrobe and there was no music playing... I said, "Look, let me just - I wanna do some moves for you." You know, so I just started working, you know, on less, you know, just kind of moving like that [motions awkwardly].
Cruise not only had fat hands, but went bald, carried extra weight, and sported some unseemly, protruding chest hair. It all helped to make his hilarious dance moves at the end credits roll one of the highlights in an already funny movie.
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Hugh Grant became such a huge rom-com leading man in the 1990s that it seems like he practically invented the genre. With his bumbly endearing ways, classically handsome features, and irresistible British accent, Grant charmed his way into the hearts of moviegoers around the world. He scored rom-com hit after hit in the 1990s with Four Weddings and a Funeral, Nine Months, and Notting Hill. Grant continued his charming leading-man success well into the 2000s with the films About a Boy, Bridget Jones's Diary, and Love Actually.
There is one very strange left turn on his filmography. In the 2012 Wachowski-helmed sci-fi epic Cloud Atlas, Grant plays six different evil characters over several different time periods. The most unglamorous among them is the chief of a flesh-eating cannibal tribe 2,000 years into the future.
"I have six cameo parts in this strange, ambitious film," Grant said. "I do a lot of killing and [sexual assault]. I wear an awful lot of prosthetic makeup, too. You probably won’t know that I am in the film! But it was a laugh. I thought before I read it that I’d turn it down, which I normally do, but I was interested in meeting the Wachowskis because I have always admired them enormously. And they are so charming and fascinating."
Even with the excessive makeup and costume, Grant still had a hard time getting into the role of the "Kona Chief." Grant recalled:
One of the Wachowskis came up and said, "Come on, man, it’s like you’re just so hungry for the flesh."
I was like, "I can’t do that. Give me a witty line." The cannibal had no witty lines. It was harder than I thought, particularly being the cannibal. I assumed I could do that, and they were so clever with the hair and makeup that I thought, "I look amazing. That’s the character."
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Jared Leto was every Gen X teenage girl's fantasy when he appeared as the reticent blue-eyed dreamboat Jordan Catalano on My So-Called Life. The angsty teen drama may have been on the air for only one season, but it became a cult favorite that launched both Leto and his co-star Claire Danes's careers.
Leto has proved his acting chops over the years in less glamorous roles like a heroin junkie in Requiem for a Dream and in his Academy Award-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club as an AIDS-infected transgender woman.
In 2007, Leto put any care for his own health and appearance aside when he packed on a whopping 65 pounds to play John Lennon's assassin, the hefty Mark David Chapman, in the biopic Chapter 27. Leto's method ways were reportedly so drastic and dangerous that the weight gain temporarily forced him into a wheelchair.
"I couldn't walk for long distances; I had a wheelchair because it was so painful. My body was in shock from the amount of weight I gained," admitted Leto. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal. I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically."
Chapter 27 did not perform well critically or at the box office. However, Leto's method performance made the film somewhat redeemable.
More Jared Leto - 726 VOTESPhoto: Universal Pictures
Perhaps no film role in the history of Hollywood did more for an unknown actor than what Thelma & Louise did for Brad Pitt. The 20-something actor played an often shirtless and beguiling drifter who charms the pants off of Geena Davis's character Thelma. Pitt capitalized on the purely eye-candy small part and launched his acting career into hyper-drive. Four years later, People magazine declared Pitt the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1995 (and then again in 2000).
But the blue-eyed, blond-haired Adonis was much more than just a pretty face. In fact, Pitt's portrayal of mental patient Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's mind-bending 12 Monkeys showed the world the actor didn't have to take his shirt off to make a lasting impression. Goines is a twitchy, ranting, completely psychotic animal rights activist who needs to be institutionalized in a state mental hospital. Pitt is completely believable and even disappears into his character's insanity.
Pitt earned his first Academy Award nomination for his performance.
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Brendan Fraser with his perfect six-pack abs, winning smile, and general affability became one of the biggest Hollywood heartthrobs in the 1990s. He scored with quirky comedic roles like a caveman who gets a 20th-century defrosting in Encino Man, barechested eye-candy in George of the Jungle, and blockbuster heroic fare like the wildly successful The Mummy franchise.
After a string of disappointing box office numbers in the mid-2000s and some personal issues that included on-set physical injuries, Fraser disappeared from the spotlight. When he stepped back onto the red carpet in the late 2010s, his matinee idol looks were significantly diminished.
However, the ever-likable Fraser rode the wave of full fan support, which launched the 50-year-old into what has been labeled "The Brenaissance." Nowadays, the Canadian actor has been getting regular roles that showcase his undeniable acting talent, instead of just his glamorous looks.
One of the first times audiences got to see Fraser play against type came as the terrifying, abusive prison guard in the Showtime series The Affair. At first, it may have been hard to believe the doughy actor playing the sinister villain was the same guy from the '90s with rock-hard abs and a perfect jawline. However, Fraser was so good in the role it led to other against-type acting gigs, like a shady recruiter in Steven Soderbergh's heist movie No Sudden Move, a starring role in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, and an obese school teacher in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale.
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Leonardo DiCaprio first became a blue-eyed, blond-haired teen idol in the early '90s when he nabbed the recurring role of Luke Brower on the popular small-screen sitcom Growing Pains. Like many '90s male heartthrobs, DiCaprio's all-American good looks made him a pinup magazine regular.
DiCaprio became the biggest movie star in the world - and gained the affection of nearly every teenage girl - when he played the tragic leading man in 1997's epic romance Titanic. One of the reasons why the James Cameron award-winning drama became the biggest box office success (at the time) in cinematic history was largely due to DiCaprio's ever-growing female fanbase who went to see the 3-hour-plus disaster drama multiple times. They simply couldn't get enough of DiCaprio, despite the tragic nature of his character Jack Dawson.
The actor went on to have an enormously successful career. He finally earned his first and only Oscar for his work as real-life 1820s frontiersman Hugh Glass in director Alejandro G. Iñárritu's survival drama The Revenant. For the movie, DiCaprio went method. That meant looking like a frontiersman who had been mauled by a bear and left alone to perish in the freezing-cold dead of winter.
Over the duration of The Revenant, the unshaven and raggedly-looking DiCaprio endured 47 different prosthetics and often had to sit through five hours of makeup. The actor suffered throughout the shoot, including getting the flu several times because he insisted on doing things like jumping into a river wearing a 100-pound bear fur during temps that reached 40 below zero. The known vegetarian also consumed raw bison and slept in animal carcasses.
"I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do," admitted DiCaprio. "Whether it’s going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. [I was] enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly."
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Matt Damon obtained official '90s heartthrob status after starring as the title character in the 1997 drama Good Will Hunting. The fact Damon also co-wrote the Academy Award-winning script, along with his Boston bestie, Ben Affleck, aided in Damon's nearly ubiquitous likability. His fresh-faced, boy-next-door looks made the actor relatable to a wide fanbase.
Damon has a history of gaining and losing weight for film roles. He is skeleton-thin in 1996's Courage Under Fire and absolutely ripped for his role as Max Da Costa in the 2013 dystopian sci-fi movie Elysium.
For the 2009 Steven Soderbergh biographical crime-comedy The Informant!, Damon took on real-life FBI whistleblower Mark Whitacre. In order to convincingly play the well-meaning but oblivious executive, Damon packed on 30 pounds.
The actor didn't have an issue with putting on the added body mass. "It was very, very easy to gain the weight. Very, very fun," Damon said. "I just basically ate everything I could see for a few months."
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Justin Timberlake hit all the right notes in the 1990s on his way to becoming one of the biggest teen idols of the decade. He started as a tween sensation Mouseketeer on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club. Then, he launched into full dreamboat mode as one of the lead vocalists in the boy band NSYNC. The talented group would go on to become one of the bestselling boy bands of all time.
Timberlake left NSYNC in 2002 to concentrate on his solo career and officially bring sexy back. He broke into the movies in 2004 and immediately went for gritty indie roles like in 2006's Alpha Dog. Perhaps his most disturbing role came that same year in Richard Kelly's dystopian political satire Southland Tales.
Like many cult hits, Southland Tales was misunderstood upon its release. In fact, the film was unceremoniously booed at the Cannes Film Festival. Kelly cast his 2006 ensemble drama against type giving the audience a chance to see actors like Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Mandy Moore like they never have before.
Timberlake takes on a tragic, disfigured Iraq War veteran. Kelly describes working with Timberlake and making perhaps the most memorable scene in the film. He said:
I absolutely loved working with Justin Timberlake. We had him for one 16-hour day at the Santa Monica Pier, and it was our longest day and night. The emotional brain center of the movie in my mind was this musical fantasy sequence where he takes the fluid karma street drug that he’s been distributing through other soldiers and hallucinates this musical number to The Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done,” which was the most popular song in the United States at the time.
His character was a famous actor and a pop star who was drafted and used as a propaganda tool by the United States Army as a celebrity who sets off to Iraq and then was tragically disfigured by his friend. This musical sequence was meant to evoke that tragedy at the center of it.
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George Clooney is so handsome he made People's "Sexiest Man Alive" list two times - in 1997, and then again in 2006. His career didn't take off until he was in his early 30s when he landed the role of the affable Dr. Doug Ross on the immediately successful medical drama ER.
Clooney played Ross for five seasons before taking off to become a movie star. In terms of box office returns, Clooney's most successful film role came in Steven Soderbergh's heist movie Ocean's Eleven, which became a trilogy.
Clooney temporarily hung up his winning smile and svelte physique in order to play real-life CIA operative Robert Baer in the 2005 Middle East thriller Syriana. He sported a heavy beard and packed on 30 pounds for the role. Some actors may enjoy the process of gaining weight - Clooney did not.
"There was nothing fun about it," said Clooney. "There was not a moment that was fun about shooting this film. That's not a slap on the film or [the director Stephen] Gaghan. It's just that everybody has that year where you age a decade, and this was that one for me."
Syriana was not a Hollywood hit. However, Clooney scored an Academy Award for best supporting actor.
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