22 Actors Who Played ~Controversial~ People In Movies Or TV Shows
With so many wild stories today, many end up as the inspiration for plotlines in TV shows and movies. Often inspired by true crime or real-life scandals, actors are challenged to bring these infamous people to life onscreen — appearances included.
Dave Franco recently addressed comparisons between him and Luigi Mangione, the man accused in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. "I have never received more texts in my life about anything," he said. "Anyone who has my phone number has reached out about it."
While many fans have already cast Franco to play Mangione if a movie or series gets developed, there have been no official offers yet. Until then, here's a look at some of the most ~controversial~ characters actors have played over the years, also inspired by real-life people:
1. To start, Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik Menendez in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story:
And here are the real Menendez brothers:
2. Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos in Monster:
And here's the real Aileen Wuornos:
3. Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer in Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story:
And here's the real Jeffrey Dahmer:
4. Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout:
And here's the real Elizabeth Holmes:
5. Zac Efron as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile:
And here's the real Ted Bundy:
6. Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J. Simpson in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story:
And here's the real O.J. Simpson:
7. Joey King as Gypsy Rose Blanchard in The Act:
And here's the real Gypsy Rose Blanchard:
8. Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump in The Apprentice:
And here's the real Donald Trump:
9. Julia Garner as Anna Delvey in Inventing Anna:
And here's the real Anna Sorokin aka Anna Delvey:
10. Cameron Britton as Edmund Kemper Mindhunter:
And here's the real Edmund Kemper:
11. Kathy Bates as Delphine LaLaurie in American Horror Story: Coven:
And here's the real Delphine LaLaurie:
12. Taylor Kitsch as David Koresh in Waco:
And here's the real David Koresh:
And here's the real Griselda Blanco:
IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo
14. Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street:
Paramount / ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Jordan Belfort:
Michael Loccisano / Getty Images
15. Christina Ricci as Lizzie Borden in Lizzie Borden Took an Ax and The Lizzie Borden Chronicles:
Chris Reardon / © Lifetime Television / Courtesy Everett Collection, Chris Reardon / © Lifetime / Courtesy Everett Collection
And here's the real Lizzie Borden:
IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo
16. Clive Owen as Bill Clinton in Impeachment: American Crime Story:
Tina Thorpe / © FX / Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Bill Clinton:
David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images
17. Josh Andrés Rivera as Aaron Hernandez in American Sports Story:
Michael Parmelee / © FX / Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Aaron Hernandez:
John Blanding / The Boston Globe via Getty Images
18. Elle Fanning as Michelle Carter in The Girl from Plainville:
Steve Dietl / © Hulu / Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Michelle Carter:
FAITH NINIVAGGI / MediaNews Group / Boston Herald via Getty Images
19. Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar in Narcos:
Daniel Daza / © Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Pablo Escobar:
Eric Vandeville / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
20. Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding in I, Tonya:
© A24 / Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Tonya Harding:
Focus On Sport / Getty Images
21. Ross Lynch as Jeffrey Dahmer in My Friend Dahmer:
© FilmRise / Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Jeffrey Dahmer:
Eugene Garcia / AFP via Getty Images
22. And finally, Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me If You Can
© DreamWorks / Courtesy Everett Collection
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And here's the real Frank Abagnale Jr.:
Najlah Feanny / Corbis via Getty Images
Which of these actors had the best performance? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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Banks: I play a drunk who's lost her child and her husband, basically, to her little sister, played by Jessica Biel. She is grappling with trauma from her childhood, which she's trying not to bring forward. She's been working [with] Alcoholics Anonymous, an incredible program, to get through her stuff. But she's also a fish out of water when she visits her sister, who [lives in a] very rarefied New York, literary, fancy rich world. My character basically lives in a trailer park in Ohio. There's a lot going on. And there's a murder mystery. I loved the complication … but it brought up all of those things for me. I do think you absolutely leave most of that [heaviness] on set. You are mining it all for the character work, so you've got to find it, but I don't need to then infect my own children with it. Sacha, you have played and created these really gregarious characters like Ali G or Borat. Your character in 'Disclaimer,' he's not a character you created, but he is very understated. 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Slate: Michelle Williams, who does a brilliant job in this show, her energy is extending outward and [her character] is trying to experiment before she does the greatest experiment of all, which is to cross over into the other side. My character is really out there, not out there willy-nilly, but she will yell at people if they are being rude, wasteful or if she feels it's unjust. [And she's] going from blasting to taking all that energy and making it this tight laser, and pointing it right into care, and knowing more about herself at the end. I am a peppy person, and I felt so excited to have the job that a lot of my day started with calming myself down. I'm at work with Michelle Williams and Sissy Spacek and Liz Meriwether and Shannon Murphy and being, like, 'Siri, set a meditation timer for 10 minutes,' and making myself do alternate nostril breathing [exercises]. Brian, many people came to know you from your role as Paper Boi in 'Atlanta.' The series was groundbreaking and like nothing else on television. What was it like moving out of that world and onto other projects? Henry: People really thought that I was this rapper that they pulled off the street from Atlanta. To me, that's the greatest compliment … When I did 'Bullet Train,' I was shocked at how many people thought I was British. I was like, 'Oh, right. Now I've twisted your mind this way.' I was [the voice of] Megatron at one point, and now I've twisted your mind that way. My path in is always going to be stretching people's imaginations, because they get so attached to characters that I've played that they really believe that I'm that person. People feel like they have an ownership of who you are. I love the challenge of having to force the imaginations of the viewers and myself to see me in a departure [from] what they saw me [as] previously. Because I realize that when I walk in a room, before I even open my mouth, there's 90 different things that are put on me or taken away from me because of how I look and how I carry myself. Javier, since doing the series are you now frequently asked about your own opinions on the Menendez case? The brothers claim their father molested them, and that is in part what led to them murdering their parents. Bardem: I don't think anybody knows. That's the point. That was the great thing about playing that character, is you have to play it in a way that it's not obvious that he did those things that he was accused of, because nobody knows, but at the same time you have to make people believe that he was capable. I did say to Ryan [Murphy] that I can't do a scene with a kid. Because in the beginning, they do drafts, and there were certain moments where I said, 'I can't. It's not needed.' The only moment that I had a hard time was when [Jose] has to face [his] young kid. It was only a moment where Jose was mean to him. That's not in my nature. Henry: I discovered, while doing my series, 'My body doesn't know this isn't real.' There's an episode where I'm shot in the leg, and I'm bleeding out and I'm on all this different morphine and drugs and all this stuff, and I'm literally lying on this ground, take after take, having to mime this. To go through the delusion of this pain ... in the middle of the takes, it was just so crazy. I would literally look at the crew and say, 'Somebody hug me! Somebody!' Stephen, that scene where you confront the boys in the parking lot with the bike, I was just like, 'Oh, my God, how many times did he have to do that?' This kid gets in your face, and I was like, 'Punch the kid!' My heart went out to you, man, not just as the character but as you being in there. Graham: Because we did it all in one take, we had that unique quality. You're using the best of two mediums. You've got that beauty and that spontaneity and that reality of the theater, and then you have the naturalism and the truth that we have with film and television. So by the time I get to that final bit, we've been through all those emotions. When I open the door and go into [Jamie's] room, everything's shaken. But it's not you. It's an out-of-body experience and just comes from somewhere else. Bardem: Listen, we don't do brain surgery, but let's give ourselves some credit. We are generous in what we do because we are putting our bodies into an experience. We are doing this for something bigger than us, and that is the story that we're telling. What have been some of the more challenging or difficult moments for you, either in your career or your recent series? Zellweger: Trying not to do what you're feeling in the moment sometimes, because it's not appropriate to what you're telling. That happens in most shows, most things that you do. I think everybody experiences it where you're bringing something from home and it doesn't belong on the set. It's impossible to leave it behind when you walk in because it's bigger than you are in that moment. Banks: I would say that the thing that I worked on the most for 'The Better Sister' was [understanding] sobriety. I'm not sober. I love a bubbly rosé. So it really did bring up how much I think about drinking and how social it is and what that ritual is for me, and how this character is thinking about it every day and deciding every day to stay sober or not. I am also a huge fan of AA and sobriety programs. I think they're incredible tools for everybody who works those programs. I was grateful for the access to all of that as I was making the series. But that's what you get to do in TV. You get to explore episode by episode. You get to play out a lot more than just three acts. Stephen, about the continuous single shot. It seems like it's an incredibly difficult and complex way to shoot a series. Why do it? Graham: It's exceptionally difficult, I'm not going to lie. It's like a swan glides across the water beautifully, but the legs are going rapidly underneath. A lot of it is done in preparation. We spend a whole week learning the script, and then the second week is just with the camera crew and the rest of the crew. It's a choreography that you work out, getting an idea of where they want the camera to go, and the opportunity to embody the space ourselves. Cohen: That reminds me of a bit of doing the undercover movies that I do because you have one take. ... I did a scene where I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. There were a lot of the people in the audience who'd gone to this rally, a lot of them had machine guns. We knew they were going to get angry, but you've got to do the scene. You've got one time to get the scene right. But you also go, 'OK, those guys have got guns. They're trying to storm the stage. I haven't quite finished the scene. When do I leave?' But you've got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that's not important. Henry: There's a certain level of sociopathy. Slate: I feel like I'm never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, 'Hey, Jenny, you weren't in the shot shoulder-wise.' I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of 'I'm a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.' And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I'm going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again. Do you see yourself in roles when you're watching other people's films or TV show? Graham: At the end of the day, we're all big fans of acting. That's why we do it. Because when we were young, we were inspired by people on the screen, or we were inspired by places where we could put ourselves and lose our imaginations. We have a lot of t— in this industry. But I think if we fight hard enough, we can come through. Do you know what I mean? It's people that are here for the right reasons. It's a collective. Acting is not a game of golf. It's a team. It's in front and it's behind the camera. I think it's important that we nourish that. Henry: And remember that none of us are t—. Bardem: What is a t—? I may be one of them and I don't know it. Graham: I'll explain it to you later.
