Actors who pulled one of the greatest performance with an unrecognizable role
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Vincent D’Onofrio – the bug in MIB
Vincent D’Onofrio in Men in Black. He plays the alien cockroach in a human body. I’ve blown a few minds when I pointed out that’s the same guy as King Pin in Daredevil.
Granted I was a kid, but it was decades to realized Hook was Dustin Hoffman.
Not Oscar worthy or anything, but a delightful role.
Colin Farrell in the Penguin. Absolutely amazing performance and completely unrecognisable.
Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta
Garry Oldman – True Romance
Christian Bale – Vice
Charlize Theron, Monster
Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.
Tom Cruise as Les Grossman- Tropic Thunder 2008 🏆
Edward Norton in Kingdom of Heaven
Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in the Darkest Hour
Gary Oldman in True Romance
Gary Oldman in Dracula
Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element
Gary Oldman
Tim Curry
Legend
Gary Oldman.
Tilda Swinton as 82 year old male Lutz Eberdorf in Suspiria 2018
Heath Ledger as the Joker
Tim curry pennywise
Ralph Fiennes as lord Voldemort… one of the top 10 I think
Willem Dafoe in Shadow of The Vampire
Or
John Hurt in The Elephant Man
John Hurt in David Lynch’s The Elephant Man
Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
Eric Stoltz as Rocky Dennis in Mask.
RDJ tropic thunder. Had a couple people who thought he was legitimately replaced with a black dude for the movie
Karl Urban in Dredd. Granted 90% of his face was covered but dude is a big actor who didn’t have the ego to be on show. And my god, his chin put in a powerful performance
Alec Guinness playing all 7 members of the doomed Gasgoyne family. Kind Hearts & Coronet’s
I liked Jeff Bridges in Iron Man.
He’s usually not playing the corporate greed villain so it was a breathe of fresh air for me.
Jacob Tremblay in Wonder. It was as if I could feel every emotion he was going through. I was moved to tears – and smiles – by his amazing and endearing performance.
Hugo Weaving. V for Vendetta
Gary Oldman has a few, but I’d go for his role in Hannibal. More emphasis on unrecognisable than greatest, but it’s rather impossible to pinpoint the latter.
RDJ in tropic thunder
Tilda Swinton in the Susperia remake!!
I disagree with you but would like to shoutout how awesome it is that you put the name of the movie and the actor in your post even though 99% of Reddit would recognize what it’s from.
**Tim Curry** was absolutely outfuckingstanding as ***Darkness***, in 1986 *”Legend”*. Iconic.
Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder. I had 2 friends who came out of the theater loving that movie and they had no idea it was him until I brought it up.
Eric stoltz in Mask.
Vincent D’Onofrio in The Cell
Gary Oldman in Hannibal
HEATH LEDGER – the dark knight
Heath Ledger as the Joker. I still cannot see him!
This is going back a ways, but Tim Curry in Legend as Lord Darkness
Tom Cruise as Les Grossman. 10 minutes of perfection. It’s the Hannibal Lecter of comedic performances
Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade, l know it’s him but l still can’t believe it’s him. Not a lot of makeup used but it is him.
Tom Cruise : Tropic Thunder
I had no idea it was him until the credits, and whatever you may think of Cruise, I think anyone would be hard to disagree Les Grossman was an epic performance, and you just know Cruise was channelling someone he met in Hollywood
Tom Hardy as whoever is he in The Revenant.
Took my best friend to see that movie in theatres. He loves Tom Hardy. About halfway through the movie he goes, “I thought Tom Hardy was in this?”
Tom Hardy was *on the screen.*
andy serkis as gollum, he pulled off a tortured, pathetic disgusting creature who you could both sympathise and despise.
also him playing caesar, he was a chimpanzee who could both pull off being like a chimp and express human emotions.
Maybe not really unrecognizable, but Hugo Weaving as Elrond. I had only seen him in Matrix before and definitely never thought of him as a beautiful man – but with the long hair and Elvish elegance, I was absolutely astonished and could hardly believe that’s the same guy.
since I upvoted every gary oldman comment here: doug jones
I have to give it to the Longlegs marketing team. They managed to advertise a much better movie than what the actual movie was. Cage just did a lot of his iconic overacting.
If somedody saw Longlegs in real life they would probably call 911, thats how over the top he was.