Actors pretend to be other people. It’s what actors do. Sometimes they fail. Other times they succeed. And sometimes they embody their characters so completely that you forget you’re watching a movie. Take some of the best biopics for example. Did you notice Helen Mirren while watching The Queen, or was it Elizabeth II you saw? What about Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, or Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln? Even now it’s difficult to think of Ben Kingsley or Mahatma Gandhi without associating one with the other, because like all of the above, the actor didn’t just play a role – they became that role.
In homage to these amazing performances, Bored Panda has compiled a list of the most accurate real-life portrayals to ever hit the silver screen. Take a look at the pictures below and vote for the most convincing!
#1 Eddie Redmayne And Felicity Jones As Stephen Hawking With His Wife Jane Wilde In The Theory Of Everything (2014)
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#2 Jamie Foxx As Ray Charles In Ray (2004)
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#3 Robert Downey Jr. As Charlie Chaplin In Chaplin (1992)
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#4 Ben Kingsley As Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi In Gandhi (1982)
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#5 Val Kilmer As Jim Morrison In The Doors (1991)
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#6 Daniel Day‑Lewis As Abraham Lincoln In Lincoln (2012)
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#7 Cate Blanchett As Bob Dylan In I’m Not There (2007)
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#8 Meryl Streep As Margaret Thatcher In The Iron Lady (2011)
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#9 Charlize Theron As Aileen Wuornos In Monster (2003)
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#10 Jennifer Lopez As Selena Quintanilla-Pérez In Selena (1997)
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#11 Hellen Mirren As HM Queen Elizabeth II In The Queen (2007)
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#12 Gary Oldman As Ludwig Van Beethoven In Immortal Beloved (1994)
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#13 Bruno Ganz As Adolf Hitler In Downfall (2004)
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#14 Salma Hayek As Frida Kahlo In Frida (2002)
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#15 Ashton Kutcher As Steve Jobs In Jobs (2013)
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#16 Kirk Douglas As Vincent Van Gogh In Lust For Life (1956
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#17 Marion Cotillard As Édith Piaf In La Vie En Rose (2007)
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#18 Adrien Brody As Salvador Dali In Midnight In Paris (2011)
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#19 Anthony Hopkins As Alfred Hitchcock In Hitchcock (2012)
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#20 André 3000 As Jimi Hendrix In Jimi: All Is By My Side (2013)
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#21 Gary Oldman And Chloe Webb As Sid Vicious And His Girlfriend Nancy Spungen In Sid And Nancy (1986)
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#22 Denzel Washington As Malcolm X In Malcolm X (1992)
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#23 Hannah Taylor-Gordon As Anne Frank In Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001)
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#24 Morgan Freeman As Nelson Mandela In Invictus (2009)
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#25 Stephen Fry As Oscar Wilde In Wilde (1997)
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#26 Anthony Hopkins As Pablo Picasso In Surviving Picasso (1996)
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#27 Geoffrey Rush As Peter Sellers In The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers (2004)
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#28 James Franco As James Dean In James Dean (2001)
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#29 Robert Downey Jr. As Charlie Chaplin In Chaplin (1992)
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#30 Sean Penn As Harvey Milk In Milk (2008)
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#31 Hilary Swank As Amelia Earhart In Amelia (2009)
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#32 Audrey Tautou As Coco Chanel In Coco Before Chanel (2009)
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#33 Daniel Brühl As Niki Lauda In Rush (2013)
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#34 Michelle Williams As Marilyn Monroe In My Week With Marilyn (2011)
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#35 Meryl Streep As Julia Child In Julie And Julia (2009)
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#36 Halle Berry As Dorothy Dandridge In Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (2000)
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#37 Michael Douglas As Liberace In Behind The Candelabra (2013)
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#38 Albert Finney As Winston Churchill In The Gathering Storm (2002)
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#39 Jim Carrey As Andy Kaufman In Man On The Moon (1999)
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#40 Johnny Depp As James ‘Whitey’ Bulger In Black Mass (2015)
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#41 Benicio Del Toro As Ernesto “Che” Guevara In Che (2008)
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#42 Liam Neeson As Oskar Schindler In Schindler’s List (1993)
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#43 Reese Witherspoon Andjoacquin Phoenix As June Carter Cash And Johnny Cash In Walk The Line (2005)
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#44 Emile Hirsch As Christopher McCandless In Into The Wild (2007)
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#45 Robert De Niro As Jake Lamotta In Raging Bull (1980)
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#46 James Franco As Aron Ralston In 127 hours (2010)
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#47 Philip Seymour Hoffman As Truman Capote In Capote (2005)
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#48 Peter O’Toole As T.E. Lawrence In Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
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#49 Naomi Watts As Princess Diana In Diana (2013)
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#50 Leonardo DiCaprio As Hugh Glass In The Revenant (2016)
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#51 Colin Firth As King George Vi In The King’s Speech (2010)
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#52 Jeff Daniels As Joshua Chamberlain In Gettysburg (1993)
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#53 Ralph Fiennes As Charles Dickens In The Invisible Woman (2013)
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#54 Eddie Redmayne As Lili Elbe In The Danish Girl (2015)
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#55 Jason Scott Lee As Bruce Lee In Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)
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#56 Ed Harris As Jackson Pollack In Pollack (2000)
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#57 Leonardo Dicaprio As Tycoon Howard Hughes In The Aviator (2004)
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#58 Jesse Eisenberg As Mark Zuckerberg In The Social Network (2010)
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#59 Morgan Freeman As Nelson Mandela In Invictus (2009)
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#60 Actor Will Smith As American Boxer Muhammad In Ali (2001)
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#61 Nicole Kidman As Grace Kelly In Grace Of Monaco (2014)
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#62 Johnny Depp As Hunter S. Thompson In Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)
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#63 Chadwick Boseman As James Brown In Get On Up (2014)
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#64 Madonna As Eva Peron, The Second Wife Of Argentine President Juan Perón, In Evita (1996)
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#65 Angelina Jolie As Mariane Pearl In A Mighty Heart (2007)
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#66 Jason Segel As David Foster Wallace In The End Of The Tour (2015)
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#67 Bryan Cranston As Dalton Trumbo In Trumbo (2015)
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#68 Toby Jones As Alfred Hitchcock In The Girl (2012)
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