10 Actors Most Comfortable Playing The Grotesque
From body transformations to awkward publicity stunts, these actors excel at being gross.
Hollywood legend, Jack Lemmon once said, ‘if you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable,’ and for actors to become vulnerable, they need to take on more challenging roles. While it seems the majority of actors in Hollywood play it somewhat safe, there are always those who dare go where no person has gone before.
When an actor has the desire to be the best, it can be quantified in numerous ways. Some judge it by revenue, others by how much critical acclaim, while these actors took upon themselves to put all of their efforts into these darker roles.
When actors have been associated with comedies or other lighter genres, there’s one place an actor can go to break free of their casting stereotypes: the grotesque. Not all can pull it off, but those who succeed can remain proud that their efforts paid off. Some simply stick to it, while these actors seem to thrive off of darker themes.
10. Natalie Portman
Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller, Black Swan, is a dark look into the world of obsession and perfectionism within ballet. Competing for a starring role in the eponymous ballet, Natalie Portman’s character, Nina Sayers, endures torment from other dancers and suffers abuse from the show’s director, Thomas Leroy, played by Vincent Cassel.
To truly indicate the level of perfectionism Nina is plagued by, Portman, who is slender in reality, is noticeably skinnier in this role. Throughout the film, the character doesn’t eat anything besides her fingernails (in a disturbing scene which would be enough to make a cat cringe), and her physical deterioration conveys to the audience that Nina’s hunger to be remembered as perfect surpasses that of her hunger to stay alive.
While Portman went on to discuss the lengths she went to in perfecting this role, it must be said that onscreen, Portman seemed at home in this whirlwind of a psychological drama. Black Swan was the movie which demonstrated that Natalie Portman is one of the greatest actors of all time, and led to her receiving an Oscar for Best Actress in 2011.