10 Iconic Movie Costumes Actors Hated Wearing

The trials and tortures of bringing icons to the big screen.

By Daniel Wylie /

When it is a hot summer day on crammed public transport and your eye catches the front of a magazine dominated by some Hollywood starlet, it's easy to find yourself lapsing into envy.

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While many of us harbour some jealousy for the rich and famous, acting is often a job like any other. Some days even A-listers would rather stay in bed than sob their way through that break-up scene for the fifth time.

As our tastes and expectations as movie-goers leans more to the fantastical, along with the expectations of seamless special effects, actors increasingly have to modify their bodies to play creations such as super-beings, hideous monsters, and zany children's characters.

While the strain on the special effects department is immediately evident, demands made on the actors are often given less prominence.

From having to spend hours in a makeup chair to giving their best performance through costumes that change and control their bodies more than any fabric ever should, some actor's most taxing on-set experience is the physical transformation itself.

10. Malin Akerman – Silk Spectre

The Watchmen is one of an all-time great in the art of graphic novels, and the film it inspired was part of the push towards a renaissance in the superhero genre.

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Its characters, particularly Rorschach and Doctor Manhattan, have iconic and striking supe-suits. However, one of the lower key costumes roused hatred in the actor. Malin Akerman was initially enthralled with the idea of donning a superhero costume, yet, the reality proved to be a more villainous experience. She recalled:

"I think latex is super sexy when you see it on someone else, but when you’re the one wearing it, it’s like putting a rubber band on your whole body [...] It takes on whatever temperature it is and then magnifies it. So if we were shooting outside and it was freezing, it made me extra cold, and if it was indoors and hot, it made it extra hot.”

Added to this was the zippers that constantly snagged her hair, the numbness caused by the extremely fitted suit, and the stench, which Akerman compared to the scent of a "human condom."

She finished most filming days sobbing to her husband on the phone.

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