1. Christian Bale - The Machinist (2004)
What? The world ignore this? But... but I've seen this picture everywhere! Yes, you might be surprised to find that I've gone insane and included Christian Bale's turn in
The Machinist on this list, but there's a totally legit reason as to why I've done that: everybody ignored that this event had even happened until, one day, Christian Bale became more famous, did a bunch more roles that required him to lose weight, and then this picture became, like,
the picture for any articles documenting "method acting" or "extreme actor transformations." So, sure, it's a pretty famous image now, but at the time,
The Machinist got about as much love as a rabies-infected puppy. It made just $8 million at the box office, during that period of time that has come to be known as "pre-
Batman Begins." Bale lost a third of his body weight for his role as a machinist who suffers from a severe case of insomnia. He endangered his health in order to achieve skinniness (medical term), and though - to this day - nobody has actually seen this film, it's become shorthand for "Christian Bale is seriously dedicated to his craft."
Like this list? Who have we missed? Let us know in the comments section below.