Great Acting or Great Makeup?
Saturday, December 21, 2019 at 2:30PM 
As soon as the first Bombshell teaser dropped, many were ready to claim Charlize Theron's performance as a great feat of transformative acting. She had become Megyn Kelly. That people were saying this after having only seen a couple of pointed glances and a tense smile left me perplexed. Were people reacting to the acting or the makeup? Still thinking about Theron, one remembers how she sailed to an Oscar in 2003 but Monster didn't receive a much deserving companion Best Makeup nomination. Sure, that performance is incredible, but part of the transformation is the cosmetic wizardry of the makeup brush rather than the virtuosity of the actress.
When it comes to "transformative performances", a lot of people conflate great acting with great makeup. This is especially true when it comes to the recreation of real-life characters and is also a discredit both to the work of the actor and of the makeup team. If the deed is done correctly, the two parts of the transfiguration will work symbiotically, but sometimes equilibrium fails to manifest. There are those actors who let the makeup do all the work but still reap the spoils of awards glory. With that in mind, I invite you all to peruse a dozen of Oscar nominated performances from the past 20 years and answer the following question: Are these examples of GREAT ACTING or GREAT MAKEUP...
Rami Malek in BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Neither good makeup or good acting.
Christian Bale in VICE
Good acting, great makeup.
Sam Rockwell in VICE
Mediocrity all around, though the makeup is at least technically impressive.
Gary Oldman in DARKEST HOUR
Letting the great Makeup do most of the work, though there's a lot of shouting too.
Steve Carell in FOXCATCHER
A grotesque performance and an uncanny feat of makeup.
Daniel Day-Lewis in LINCOLN
Both great, but only the acting was recognized by the Academy.
Meryl Streep in THE IRON LADY
Inconsistently good performance, consistently great makeup.
Marion Cotillard in LA VIE EN ROSE
Perfect and both the work of the actress and the makeup team won awards in recognition of that perfection.
Charlize Theron in MONSTER
A great performance greatly helped by miraculous makeup. Still, only Theron got the Oscar.
Nicole Kidman in THE HOURS
Good acting and distracting makeup.
Jon Voight in ALI
Nice makeup does all the work but gets none of the glory. Mediocre Oscar-nominated performance.
Willem Dafoe in SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE
Both are great in a scary way. Thankfully, both aspects of the transformation were justly nominated.
Reader Comments (24)
Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep in Lemony Snickets- great acting, superb makeup.
Dafoe is great , day-lewis ,kidman , theron and cotillard are good . The rest range from not bad to terrible
Salma Hayek in FRIDA
Even when she was nominated and the film won the Oscar in make-up, I find very poor both aspects. None of both feels like a good characterization of the role.
It looks like the make-up departament thought: "How can we make Salma look like Frida?. Let´s glue some furry between her eyebrows"
A great piece,very interesting.
Very fond of Carell in Foxcathcer though
Theron's performance goes way beyond good make up
Dafoe definitely goes there
Malek's make up and performance do no justice to the icon Freddie
Kidman is supporting that's all.
Oldman one of his and the Academy's worst decisions,when I think of that scene on the train I wince.
Cotillard bad films stellar performances
Can I add Greer Garson in Sunrise at Campobello please.
Carell is brilliant in Foxcatcher
Óscar Jaenada in CANTINFLAS
Adequate make-up, great performance, dreadful film
Hi Cláudio, like a few others have already commented, I think Carell is fantastic in Foxcatcher. Curious to know if your grotesque comment is meant as a compliment.
Kidman's performance in The Hours is impressive. Cotillard's pantomime in La Môme left me cold.
JS -- I haven't watched Foxcatcher in some time, but my initial reaction both to him and the movie was quite negative. That said, his grotesque, unnerving and repugnant, presence stayed with me and I wonder if I rewatched Foxcatcher if my opinion wouldn't change. It's certainly memorable work and its abrasive oily quality makes sense with the script and the director's apparent intentions.
To be honest, the reason I used that specific wording was a way of reflecting my reaction to the performance without concluding if it was good or bad. it was grotesque, but I need a rewatch before I say if it's purposefully grotesque or erroneously so.
Hope that answered your question and thank you, as always, for the feedback. I appreciate it.
Carell is outstanding in Foxcatcher, and the movie is excellent too. I've never understood the hate this performance gets.
What about John Hurt in "The Elephant Man?" To me that is the quintessential example of where you can't divorce the makeup from the performance, making it rather difficult to evaluate just how much Hurt was really doing.
In any case, makeup, just like editing or lighting, impacts how we perceive a performance. It's never the actor's work alone we're seeing.
It was in Hurt's voice where he transended the make up
Jon Voight is a mediocre actor and a horrible person.
Theron is all makeup no soul as kelly... I second all the love for Steve Carell in Foxcatcher. He's great in that film.
Theron’s performance is a vocal feat as much as anything else. She lost her voice in pre-production trying to get the lower register of Megyn Kelly.
George Clooney in “And the Oscar Goes To...” said Cotillard was one of his favorite performances ever because of how she convincingly played an older person who doesn’t want to be older.
Thanks for all the shade. CAA is packaging a Val Garland biopic - the famous English makeup artist - with Streep as Val. Makeup is very soothing, I totally understand why young people love watching it.
Malek isn't bad at all, just not an Oscar-caliber performance. He's awkward in the beginning. I think the directing and even cinematography choices really did a bad job if protecting the good and bad.
Bale is great, and Rockwell is great in a near cameo performance. Playing Bush can go either way as far as attention, but if he wasn't the defending winner, he wouldn't have been nominated, and had he not been such an obvious contender, people wouldn't dislike it..yeah, I'm confident there. Not sure what's mediocre there. It's a good performance, very clearly, that represents a recent, near caricature of a figure, in a movie where the director tries to exhaust you, that was a piece of an ensemble. Just because it shouldn't be nominated doesn't mean it isn't good, including when nominated.
Anyway
Charlize Theron is beyond fantastic in Monster. I rewatched the film recently for the first time in years and I was so scared the performance and the film wouldn't hold up but it aged well I'm happy to say. Patty Jenkins did not get enough credit for her work at the time and it's so wild, and upsetting, to think how long it took for her to direct a second film. Yes, the make up helped Theron a great deal to disappear into the role but there is a depth of emotion there that is just awe inspiring. It's a powerful, big performance but always honest and sensitive.
Charlize is ALL makeup. Eugh.
To echo Brad, I rewatched Monster last night and was blown away again by Charlize and the film. Phenonemal, heartwrenching work. It really is hard to believe it's her, and not just because of the make up. I think that was a tool that helped her access a different part of herself. I'm looking forward to Bombshell just because I like to see the actresses in action, I am not expecting anything that is sufficiently critical of these women (as I've heard it's like The Iron Lady). As for Cotillard, she's probably my favourite Best Actress winner ever and the make up was justly recognised. As much as I love Nicole in The Hours, I can't help but wonder if the performance would have been better without the nose.
I was on the fence about Carell's performance until I saw a video of the actual person that he played and found that his acting embodied real weirdness.
Jesus christ that picture of Rami....it was all a dream right?? that couldn't have happened.
Looking at this list helps me understand Rockwell's VICE nomination; because Voight in ALI is exactly the same thing. Tiny part, makeup, SNL impersonation, all of which should not add up to 1 of 5 academy award nominations for best acting of the year. It makes me sad that it reminds me how much of a popularity contest these things are.
Carrell, Cotillard, and Theron (Monster) were magnificent in their roles.
Carrell, Cotillard, and Theron (Monster) were magnificent in their roles.