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    10 Times Actors/Actresses Gave Up Their Sex Symbol Status For A Role

    There have been quite a few actors and actresses who have gone to drastic measures to perfect a role, whether they put on weight and shave their eyebrows or they take a role as the villain, these celebrities have shown that they care more about their performance than their appearance.

    hillaryrobyn
    by hillaryrobyn

    Community Contributor

    1. Charlize Theron

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    Charlize Theron was almost unrecognizable in Monster, when she depicted real life serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

    2. Brad Pitt

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    Brad Pitt has shown how diverse he can be over and over again, like in 12 Monkeys, when he played Jeffrey Goines, a delusional psych ward patient.

    3. Heath Ledger

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    Heath Ledger stole our hearts in earlier romantic comedies, but then he took the part of the Joker in The Dark Knight and blew us away with his total transformation and perfect performance.

    4. Leonardo DiCaprio

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    Leonardo DiCaprio is another actor that has shown his acting diversity over the years, but he took us to a dark place with his portrayal of Howard Hughes in The Aviator.

    5. Colin Farrell

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    Colin Farrell showed us that he would go to any length to make his character more real, including rock a comb over, in Horrible Bosses.

    6. Johnny Depp

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    Johnny Depp is notorious for picking roles that are a little...different. Starting when he played Edward Scissorhands in 1990.

    7. Ryan Gosling

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    Ryan Gosling, the original "Hey girl..." hottie, is a multi-talented man (he's the lead singer for Dead Man's Bones), and back in 2002 he played Richard Haywood, a popular, sociopathic high school student that decides to commit a perfect murder in Murder By Numbers.

    8. Denzel Washington

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    We're used to Denzel playing serious roles, but he showed his acting prowess when he played a paralyzed homicide detective confined to a medical bed in The Bone Collector, and kept our attention.

    9. Angelina Jolie

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    Angelina Jolie had no problem changing her appearance for her role in Girl, Interrupted.

    10. Tom Cruise

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    Tom Cruise proved that he didn't care about his sex symbol status when he played Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder.

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