There are many stars who take their career so seriously that they are willing to change their appearance to get the role. You might be surprised to find out what some of them are willing to do. For many actresses, they love their beauty and they would never want to be in an “ugly role;” they do their rom-coms and they are more than happy to stay there. But there are some beauties in the industry that wanted to show their range as actresses and not just take on the pretty roles. They wanted the nitty gritty roles and they may have got more than they bargained for. Those roles required them to, at times, gain weight and change their overall appearance. But in the end, it paid off for some of them come award season.

Then there is the other side of the coin, the actresses who take on roles that mean they have to step it up a notch in the industry. These actresses aren’t ugly by any means, but their regular girl-next-door looks aren’t going to work for these roles. These actresses had to appear fitter and even had to start lifting weights for a role. They were so determined to really portray their characters well that they took out their lipstick and headed to the gym. These are the roles that actresses played that are both foxy and ugly and it definitely makes you appreciate how these women are dedicated to their art.

Emily Blunt

Do you remember when Emily Blunt hit the scene as an assistant working at a fashion magazine in Devil Wears Prada? She was just as gorgeous then as she is now but there is a difference in her body these days and it has a lot to do with the roles she is getting. Gone are the days when she only appeared in rom-coms. She has been running alongside heavy hitters such as Tom Cruise in action movies and that meant that her body had to change as well. Blunt has been photographed getting super fit and we can tell that the results are really starting to show. For movies such as Edge of Tomorrow and Sicario where she plays an FBI agent, this girl had to trade in her slim figure for a more muscular one. We do love the results, though.

Nicole Kidman

You would never recognize Nicole Kidman on the streets in this getup. We still can’t believe it’s her. Gone is the beautiful red hair and in comes a very mousey-looking brown hair. She looks boring and unfortunate in this role. She played Virginia Woolf the novelist in The Hours and she got a prosthetic nose to make her look more like the novelist. It was hideous and it’s one thing that Kidman hated about the role. Not too many people were impressed with the look of Kidman and thought that the nose was a little much, but they went for it anyway. Getting the nose was well worth it because Kidman won her first Academy Award for her portrayal of the novelist, so in the end, it all worked out for her.

Michelle Williams

Michelle Williams may have been the hottie that seduced the boy next door on Dawson’s Creek all those years ago, but Williams is not an actress that is known for her portrayal of gorgeous characters. She often plays the frumpy housewife or the plain-Jane girlfriend. We rarely see her in roles that truly showcase her beauty. That was until she played Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. She immersed herself in the character and truly pulled off not only the physical attributes of Marilyn, but her whole personality as well. It was really hard to tell where Michelle ended and Marilyn began. It is so true that some actresses become their characters if only for a short period of time.

Katie Holmes

Katie Holmes has always been a babe. She was the crush of many young men when she first appeared on Dawson’s Creek and she’s only become hotter the older she gets. Though these days, she seems to have tamed the hottie aspect of herself but is still a very beautiful woman. For her role in All We Had, she played a poverty-stricken mother who was trying to make a better life for her daughter. She had bad clothes and even worse makeup and it seemed as if they wanted the actress to look as trashy as possible and they succeeded. Holmes ended up looking tired and strung out in the whole movie. It certainly wasn’t the role that showed off her best features, throughout the whole movie you sat there and wondered what happened to that cute girl from down the creek.

Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner is certainly a beautiful woman, but she’s always had that girl-next-door appeal. That was until she blew us away in the TV series Alias. In that series, she was literally every character that you could imagine and she often had to change her look. She was the foxy secret agent Sydney Bristow and it totally changed how we saw the actress. She played characters that wore bright red hair and even played a dominatrix once. The show was pretty awesome and it showed what a great actress Garner was. It catapulted her career, that’s for sure.

Gwyneth Paltrow

In 2001, Gwyneth Paltrow put on a fat suit for her role as an obese woman for the movie Shallow Hal. She’s barely unrecognizable in the role and it’s interesting to see what celebrities would look like overweight. She was the love interest of Jack Black who could only ever see her as this hot girl. She definitely proved that she could pull that type of a character off because she was really convincing. Considering the kind of diet that the Goop creator is on now she probably could never picture actually being obese. For the role, it required her to put on a fat suit and to have “fat” makeup put on her. As we can see, it dramatically changed the way she looked. It was a fun role and it defiantly showed off how shallow some people can be.

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson is certainly considered to be a hottie in Hollywood, but there have been some roles that weren’t exactly right for her curvaceous figure. She’s the kind of actress that doesn’t worry much about being skinny. She’s always had a booty, big hips, and a large bust and guys go crazy over it. When it came time for her to play the role of Black Widow in the Avengers, she had to change her whole figure. She had to mainly do it to fit into that ridiculous one-piece catsuit that female superheroes always have to wear. We can’t believe she managed to do it because she said she wasn't ever a fan of going on a diet. She trimmed down however and fit into that suit and it’s pretty obvious just how foxy she is. It doesn’t seem to matter whether she’s thin or curvy she manages to be a bombshell.

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie certainly has no problem changing her appearance for a role; she’s done it numerous times. For her role in Girl Interrupted she had to change into a skeletal, burnt-out crazy person. To say that she pulled the role off would be the understatement of the century. Some people might venture to say she was already a little crazy before the role, so it fit perfectly. It wasn’t just about being a crazy person, Jolie was sickly and unhinged in the role. To say that it was her “ugly side” would be so true. This was one of the roles in her career that made her the actress that she is now. Girl Interrupted is considered to be the breakout role for her and it definitely showed her range as an actress.

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez seems to be successful no matter what she does; she has a strong career in the music industry and in the film industry as well. Lopez has always had a stunning figure! But for the most part, she kept her curves and she stuck with that look. She’s playing a dirty detective in the TV series Shades of Blue. It’s the kind of role that is always active, meaning that her character, is at times, runs away from adversaries or chasing down bad guys. It requires her to be in super great shape. We’ve been noticing lately that she is looking buffer than normal. She has some serious muscle on her body which is pretty awesome for a woman her age. Being a detective suits her and we’ve never seen her looking better. She is definitely one badass babe.

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston is a gorgeous woman with an amazing body and she has won the hearts of guys for years. She even has some celebrities that have been crushing on her for a while. But when it came time for her to play the role of a bored housewife in the movie Cake she wasn’t looking too glamorous. The biggest aspect of her role was to portray a woman who was always in chronic pain, not an easy feat. The role didn’t require anything major except she wasn’t allowed to primp herself at all which meant zero makeup anywhere. She definitely pulled off the look as we don’t normally see Aniston like this. Though it didn’t stop Jake Gyllenhaal from falling for her. The movie was great and it was a very heavy role that Aniston pulled off flawlessly, but at the end of the day, the movie got terrible reviews. Aniston may have thought it could bring her to an Oscar win.

Megan Fox

Before Megan Fox reached huge celebrity status from her role in the Transformers movies, she was basically the girl next door. It took a while for her to become the sexpot that we see these days. If you see any of her high-school photos or even before she made it big, she actually looked pretty plain. But for Transformers, she had to look like every guy’s fantasy. She played the love interest of Shia Labeouf but she was meant to practically exude s*x from every pore in her body and she pulled it off beautifully. She had the perfect body and the perfect attitude and she played the girl that everyone wanted. Girls wanted to be her and guys wanted to sleep with her. She went from being a nobody to an overnight success all because she was a total babe.

Julia Roberts

It’s actually pretty rare to see Julia Roberts not looking her best. She is an insanely gorgeous woman and she has had a long career in Hollywood. For the most part, she has spent her career playing girls in rom-coms, never reaching too far beyond her comfort zone. But as she’s gotten older, she seems to be taking more risks when it comes to the roles she plays. In the movie Secret in Their Eyes, she plays a cop who is destroyed when she finds her teenage daughter murdered in a dumpster. And what was worse for the character was that she was a cop and felt she could have somehow prevented it from happening. She started off as a plain-looking cop, but she further declined as her character grieved and eventually did the unthinkable.

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman is the classic girl next door. She is no doubt beautiful, but she’s still the girl next door. Even in real life, this girl isn’t the one that’s going to have a bad girl image. She's smart and educated and stays out of trouble. She’s had a hell of a great career in Hollywood and the wonderful thing about Portman is that she is able to be any character she wants. She proved that with her role in one of the Star Wars movies. One role we never thought she would be able to pull off was the role of a stripper. It just seemed too farfetched to us. She did it, though, and got good reviews. She played one in the movie Closer and it required her to dress steamy, put on a hot pink wig, and seduce Clive Owen.

Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz is another drop-dead gorgeous actress that has paved an amazing career for herself in Hollywood. She always looks incredible in every role that she plays, well except for that one time. She played the role of Lotte Schwartz in Being John Malkovich and the hair alone was something to behold. She was a weird girl that was completely obsessed with John Malkovich and to say that she was a crazy cat lady basically hit the nail on the head. She didn’t have to make any major changes for the role; she just got uglier by not wearing makeup and saying goodbye to her classic blonde locks. It sure changed her look completely however, in a frightening way. We would not want to see this lady in the streets. It was a strange, but good, movie in the end.

Jessica Alba

Jessica Alba hasn’t been doing much in Hollywood these days, but there was a time when she was a pretty hot commodity. During that time, she had to ramp up her foxy appeal (not that it should have been too hard) for her role as Nancy in Sin City. Her character Nancy was a stripper in a city gone to hell. The graphics alone in the movie changed the way that everyone looked, but Jessica Alba was a total smoke show in the movie. She portrayed the role of the stripper perfectly with tight and revealing clothing and a body that most women would die for. The role required her to be in the best shape of her life because she wasn’t always wearing a lot of clothing and everything was tight and revealing.

Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway is no stranger to getting ugly for a role. Before she became the star that she is today, she played a very unfortunate looking character in The Princess Diaries. It was her breakout role and it was what put her on the map as a star. She had to appear very unhygienic in the movie as well as have a terrible rats nest of a hairdo and geeky glasses. She definitely wasn’t Princess material. After she became super famous, though, Hathaway once again decided to throw the glamor away for a moment when she played a poverty-stricken girl in Les Miserables. Although she looked terrible with all her hair chopped off, looking totally ragged, Hathaway stole the show in the movie. Her portrayal of the character was amazing and she once again proved that it was worth going to work with no makeup on.

Morena Baccarin

Morena Baccarin has always been a thin girl and while she was dabbling in the sci-fi world with shows such as Firefly and V, that was okay. But when it came time for her to play the badass girlfriend in Deadpool, she had to start lifting weights. She’s considered to be one of Hollywood’s best-kept secrets because she’s an amazing actress, though she hasn’t been on the scene for very long. When it came time to star in the movie Deadpool, Baccarin had to prove that she could hold her own in action scenes if necessary and she totally pulled it off. We’re not sure what her role will be in the second instalment, but we hope she lives through it. Girlfriends of superheroes don’t always last very long.

Vanessa Hudgens

We’re certainly not used to seeing Vanessa Hudgens like this. She did start her career off as the good girl in High School Musical. That was where she got her big break and there’s no doubt about it this girl is stunning. Her looks took a serious turn for the worse in this movie and the girl is barely recognizable. In the movie Gimme Shelter, she played Agnes Bailey, a pregnant teenage runaway. She pulled the role off to a tee and we’ve never seen her looking so bad. In order to prepare for the role, she cut off her beautiful black locks in exchange for a horrendous chop shop hairdo that makes her look emo. It’s quite the change from what we are used to seeing in High School Musical, but maybe that was what she wanted, to be seen as a different type of character.

Demi Moore

Demi Moore went from being just a regular beauty to a buff and insanely gorgeous stripper for the movie Striptease. The movie itself didn’t get the best reviews, but Moore’s role was pretty great. She pulled off the role of a stripper perfectly and she transformed her body to do so. When Portman did it, she was still the skinny girl that we have seen in all her movies, but with Moore, she looked buff and even had a boob job. She showcased it all as well as some new stripper moves she learned. She looked like she belonged competing in a fitness contest than she did as a stripper but have you seen the girls in Vegas, they take stripping to a whole new level. She made all the other strippers of Hollywood look pathetic. She transformed her body and she never looked better.

Mariah Carey

It’s actually pretty shocking that Mariah Carey even did this for a role. She is one of the top glamorous women in the industry and we rarely see her looking anything but the best. She loves everything lavish and lives a very upscale lifestyle. For her role as Ms. Weiss in Precious, however, she showed off a very unglamorous side of herself. She essentially looked like crap for the entire movie, again something we would never have thought she would do. It really doesn’t look like her at all. She had to give up the look of a famous singer and try on a role that was anything but glamorous. She played the role of an overworked and exhausted social worker and she definitely looked tired. The movie was good in the end, but Carey didn’t win any Oscars, so we’re not sure if she thought it was all worth it in the end.

Jada Pinkett Smith

Jada Pinkett Smith is no stranger to playing badass characters, but when it came to playing Fish Mooney in the TV series Gotham, it meant she would need a badass body as well. Smith has always been in shape, so getting ready for the role probably wasn’t too hard, but she had to turn her body into a killer one, literally. These days her body consists of rippling abs, bulging biceps, and a toned core, everything that she needs for her badass role. We love the way that she looks now and it totally suits her character. When it comes to DC Comic’s characters, there aren’t too many that are as badass as Mooney. Smith shows off the character well and she embodies who she is especially physically. What you may not know is that her character was created especially for the show, so it goes to show just how awesome Smith is.

Rooney Mara

There are rarely uglier characters than the one that Rooney Mara played in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Seriously, it was like her character of Lisbeth Salander did everything in her power not to be attractive. Maybe deep down that was what she was trying to do on a subconscious level because she was already being abused by men. Rooney Mara really had to do a lot to portray such a dark and downright ugly girl. We were used to seeing Mara as a charming character like we saw in The Social Network, but she really pulled out all the stops for this role. She looked like a goth character with her hair was chopped all over the place and her face covered in piercings. She completely altered the way she looked for her character.

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman has not only done roles to make herself appear uglier, but she has also done roles that required her to turn into a s*x kitten and it’s those roles that she seems to excel at. She turned the heat up in Practical Magic alongside Sandra Bullock playing the naughty one of the two witch sisters. She was the one that ran away from home and chased after the bad boys. She came back to town and epically told all the women in the town “to lock up [their] husbands.” She had a reputation for being scandalous and she played the foxy lady to a tee. We definitely enjoyed her in that role.

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is probably one of the actresses that changed the most for a role. She is truly a stunning woman and even as she grows older, she’s still a total bombshell. For her role in Monster in 2003, she not only had to change her appearance drastically, but she had to put on a ton of weight as well. Not too many actresses would be willing to do such extreme things for a role. She didn’t even have eyebrows for crying out loud. Theron wanted that role more than anything and she pulled it off. She did such a great job, we all thought we were watching the serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Theron also won an Academy Award for her portrayal of a female serial killer.