Too beautiful to be true. Or also: How do female biopics work?

It’s historically proven that actors portraying real-life characters at the Oscars have a higher chance of winning the award. Moreover, the more dramatic the transformation—often involving prosthetic makeup rather than just resemblance—the greater the odds. This is true for male actors, but even more so for female actors. Often, real-life figures are portrayed as more attractive in biopics (understandably, who wouldn’t be flattered to be played by, say, Margot Robbie?), yet female actors risk being judged as “too pretty” and almost as if they haven't committed enough to the role. Better to appear less attractive, change their features, and disappear into the character—not to seem more convincing but so we can forget who’s behind the character. And, with that, forget their beauty.

Is losing one’s beauty for a role worth it? The case of Charlize Theron

Of course, this isn’t a rule or a set strategy to follow, nor does the Academy use it as a criteria to reward actors. Recognition, like the Oscar awarded to Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich, proves that. However, the deeper one delves into a role, the greater the chance of reaching Hollywood’s elite. A widely discussed example is Charlize Theron in Monster (2003), directed by Patty Jenkins, where she played the infamous U.S. serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a character involved in prostitution and in a relationship with young Shelby, played by Christina Ricci. To embody the role, Theron underwent special preparation, damaging her hair to make it appear anything but healthy and glossy like typical Hollywood stars, bleaching her eyebrows, and adding fake tattoos to visibly damaged skin.

Theron won over Academy voters with her performance, remembered for the complete transformation she underwent, embodying a figure strikingly different from her red carpet persona. More recently, Jessica Chastain won for her portrayal of the devout Christian and TV host in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, where makeup and hair design won an Oscar along with their “masterpiece.” Straying far from her usual classic Hollywood glamour, Chastain altered her cheeks, jaw, and cheekbones to channel the famous face seen by a wide television audience of viewers and followers. She triumphed over other contenders like Penelope Cruz for Parallel Mothers, Olivia Colman for The Lost Daughter, and two other real-life figures, albeit less “disguised”—Lady Diana, portrayed by Kristen Stewart in Spencer and Lucille Ball, played by Nicole Kidman in Being the Ricardos.

The case of Marion Cotillard and Renée Zellweger

Another example of gradual transformation in her career is French singer Édith Piaf, with drawn-on eyebrows and a powdered face that earned Marion Cotillard her Oscar, placing her among the few non-American actors to win the award. The clear contrast between her magnetic persona from Inception and the “little sparrow” of La Vie en rose was striking. However, in the case of two other musician colleagues, production and casting didn’t work to deconstruct the actress but rather focused on affinity and similarity to create a link between fiction and reality.

This approach immediately brings to mind Renée Zellweger and her portrayal of Judy Garland: two women, two professionals whose lives were shaped by success and who, in exchange for their dedication, often faced rejection from show business. Garland, unable to recover after walking the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz (though her career continued with enduring classics like Meet Me in St. Louis and The Pirate by Vincente Minnelli, and George Cukor’s remake of A Star is Born), and Zellweger, who fell into excessive cosmetic surgery and struggled to move beyond her image as Bridget Jones. With Judy, the actress won her second Oscar sixteen years after her first for Cold Mountain in 2004. And after the 2019 biopic, she even returned for a fourth installment of the romantic heroine saga we thought had concluded.

Angelina Jolie and Maria Callas: when real life meets fiction

The union of two personalities becoming one, as seen in Judy, also occurs with Angelina Jolie and her portrayal of the opera soprano Maria Callas in Maria, premiered at Venice 81, and directed by Pablo Larraín, focusing on Callas’ last days. As with Judy Garland, the performance doesn’t rely on a complete physical resemblance between actress and subject. Instead, the character’s essence comes from the interplay between Jolie and Callas. Jolie offers her slender frame—long scrutinized by tabloids, gossip sites, and public chatter—reflecting the discussions that also centered on Callas’ physique. Here, the biopic becomes a bridge of communication, highlighting the actress's history as a message rather than hiding it, making the casting choice itself a thoughtful decision to amplify the narrative.

And in Italy? Miriam Leone as Oriana Fallaci, but it's not quite the same

Recent Italian productions, on the other hand, have shown that sometimes there is no intention of going either way. Take, for example, the choice of Miriam Leone for Miss Fallaci, where she also had to forcibly study a Florentine accent to portray the journalist and writer in the Paramount Plus series. Or consider The Law According to Lidia Poët, where there’s no resemblance between Italy’s first female lawyer and her actress Matilda De Angelis. In these cases, the choice to cast them seems driven by a single goal: they are among the leading faces in Italian entertainment, and there is hope they will contribute to a production’s success (with the Netflix series indeed securing a second season after its release in 2023). Only Here Is Not Hollywood attempted to work with makeup and prosthetics, with decent but not outstanding results. And when the lead is a new star like Pietro Castellitto playing Riccardo Schicchi, it doesn’t even matter if his co-stars in the roles of Cicciolina, Moana Pozzi, and Éva Henger in Diva Futura resemble the adult film stars or not.

The latest example? Sydney Sweeney

Still, the desire to have one’s name engraved on that golden statue is undeniable, and for acting, many say, they’d do anything. So, another transformation is in store for a contemporary sex symbol who—almost mirroring Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White in The Iron Claw—is training her arms and abs to become boxer Christy Martin. This is none other than Sydney Sweeney, unrecognizable with dark wavy hair and impressive muscles, whose on-set photos for the film directed by David Michôd went viral after she posted them on her Instagram profile, which has twenty-two and a half million followers. A clear change of direction from Euphoria or Anyone But You. Is it just a desire to shake off her sexy actress image, or is this the young actress’s first genuine attempt to aim for an Oscar?