In Nicole Kidman‘s four, outstanding decades in the entertainment industry — the star has gone through her fair share of dramatic transformations.
The 54-year-old has a long track record of not only completely immersing herself in the character but also, visually becoming just like them.
In her Oscar-winning performance portraying novelist Virginia Wolf 2002’s The Hours, makeup artists spent a total of three hours a day applying her prosthetic nose.
Kidman was so unrecognizable in the role that many fans had trouble identifying it was her.
“I did enjoy being anonymous,” she told the San Fransisco Chronicle. “It was fun to be able to go out of my trailer and not have anyone know me.”
Nicole even used the nose privately when she wasn’t filming for privacy reasons.
And then in 2018, Nicole struck a chord with audiences when she dawned a shocking new look in the movie, Destroyer.
In this film, Kidman plays a police detective who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang. She sports a choppy wig and gaunt face, due in part to special effects makeup.
“It was quite a bit of actual makeup, painting and making her skin look a little weathered like most people in their 50s that haven’t taken care of themselves,” makeup designer Bill Corso told Variety.
In the movie, Kidman also had a small prosthetic piece to change the shape of her nose — and producers wanted it to look as though it had been broken.
But her performance in The Goldfinch may have been her most dramatic transformation to date.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt, the movie premiered in 2019 and was the first collaboration between Amazon and Warner Bros. And while the hit ultimately bombed in the theaters, Kidman, as usual, gave a stunning performance.
Nicole appeared in a supporting role and portrayed Mrs. Barbour, who was a socialite matriarch as well as a temporary guardian who adopts one of her son’s orphaned friends.
Kidman created a stir when fans saw her dawning a wavy gray-blond hair as well as a significant portion of aging makeup — as, of course, the actress once more had become a chameleon in front of the camera.