21 Real People And The Actors Who Played Them Either On TV Or The Big Screen

Pretending to be someone else and nailing it is definitely not an easy job.

Ayoub

• Published in Film & TV
• April 14, 2022

When a movie or TV show is based on a true story, it usually makes it much harder to represent the events accurately since you have a concrete example to compare to and the tiniest detail can ruin the whole movie. The actors usually need to do much more research and practice their roles religiously in order to achieve a close portrayal of the real person, which usually means adopting the real-life subject's routines, habits, and quirks.

Casting the right actor for a role is not an easy job at all considering how you have to put into account many factors that have to be present in a certain actor. The actor needs to at least have a basic resemblance to the real-life subject and the more precise details can be altered with the help of makeup.

However, even if an actor is the exact spitting image of the real-life subject, if their performance is inadequate, they will fail to do the job properly. Some actors still managed to make their marks through their incredibly accurate performances portraying real-life people and won prestigious awards thanks to it.

Scroll down and check out the side-by-side comparisons of actors and real people they portrayed in a movie or TV show.

1. Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu's The Dropout

2. Elle Fanning as Michelle Carter in Hulu's The Girl From Plainville

3. Renee Zellweger as Pam Hupp in The Thing About Pam

4. Austin Butler as Elvis Presley in Elvis (coming June 2022)

5. Julia Garner as Anna Sorokin in Netflix’s Inventing Anna

6. Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in Amazon Prime's Being the Ricardos

7. Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt in The First Lady

8. Sebastian Stan and Lily James as Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson in Hulu's Pam & Tommy

9. Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci

10. Julia Garner as Anna Delvey in Netflix's Inventing Anna

11. Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp in American Crime Story: Impeachment

12. Sophie Turner as Princess Charlotte in HBO Max's The Prince

13. Christian Serratos as Selena in Netflix's Selena: The Series

14. Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in Respect

15. Rose Bryne as Gloria Steinem in Hulu's Mrs. America

16. Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman in Harriet

17. Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

18. Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI in Netflix's The Two Popes

19. Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

20. Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson in Bombshell

21. Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly in Bombshell.

I wonder what it feels like to see yourself portrayed in a movie or TV show by a famous and prestigious actor. Most of them probably hate how they were portrayed since things are usually exaggerated and overdramatized in show business in order to make the story more interesting to the viewer.

The entire process of learning the subject's routines, habits, and quirks and practicing them every day is kind of insane, but that's what it takes to practically become that person and portray them in an accurate way. If you ever think that acting is easy, try doing that just.

Ayoub