James Franco took the role of James Dean in the 2001 biographical TV series James Dean. He bore a stark resemblance to the late actor.

Franco went to extreme lengths, even taking up smoking to tuly inhabit the mind of the original rebel without a cause.

He even learned to ride a motorcycle, play guitar and do the conga for the role.

Much was made of the resemblance for the marketing of the TV series, featuring a poster that said “James Franco is James Dean.”

Franco won a Golden Globe for his efforts sharing, “I isolated myself a lot during the filming. I did this because I think [Dean] had a pervasive loneliness throughout his life and I wanted to feel what that felt like.”

Marilyn Monroe is still one of the world’s most famous figures. She was the symbol of sexual liberation in the 50s and 60s, becoming one of the most famous pin-ups ever.

Monroe is a big part to fill but Michelle Williams is a perfect fit compared to other actors considered, including Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson.

Williams was the only one producers met with.

Aside from the research done for the role, Williams also gained weight to simulate Monroe’s iconic figure. “Unfortunately, it went right to my face,” Williams says in Vogue.

So to achieve Monroe’s body, foam padding was used for the actress.

Lots of actors have played the legendary British leader as an older man. Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour and Albert Finney in The Gathering Storm being some of them, but the likeness of Simon Ward to a young Winston Churchill is difficult to deny.

Directed by Richard Attenborough, 1972’s Young Winston was adapted from Churchill’s memoir of his early years, which was published back in 1930.

It was Churchill himself who approached producer Carl Foreman for an adaptation of his memoir, as he was impressed by Guns of Navarone.

Foreman’s first choice was Thoroughly Modern Millie actor James Fox. But production stalled for several years so Ward was chosen instead, not least for his resemblance to Churchill in his younger days.

Five years after the death of Apple mogul Steve Jobs, two rival films about his life appeared. One was directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin, which earned critical acclaim and a whole host of golden statuettes.

The other did not, but this lesser film that was better cast. In the aftermath of Kutcher’s casting, reaction was mixed, as he was known for comedy roles in TV shows like Two and a Half Men and That 70s Show.

But Kutcher bears more than a passing resemblance to Steve Jobs.

Fassbender next took up the role, and said that he “studied Ashton Kutcher” in preparation for his performance. Though this was said with a bit of a sarcastic smile.

O’Shea Jackson Jr bears a striking resemblance to Ice Cube, with his arched eyebrows to the shape of his mouth, but that’s because he’s Ice Cube actual son.

Jackson Jr. raps under the stage name OMG, and made his feature film debut in Straight Outta Compton, which tells the rise and fall of the legendary rap group N.W.A.

After the release of Straight Outta Compton in 2015, Jackson Jr has continued acting, from the black comedy-drama Ingrid Goes West in 2017 to 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Jackson Jr even made a guest appearance on WWE Smackdown in October 2019.

It can be argued that no film is more emblematic of biopic Oscar glory than The Theory of Everything. Eddie Redmayne stars as the renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in this one.

The film focuses on the younger days of Hawking with his gradual onset of Motor Neurone Disease, the condition that left Hawking wheelchair-bound.

Redmayne has attracted criticism for this performance, one in an infamous tradition of able-bodied actors playing disabled characters just to scoop awards.

Guardian columnist Frances Ryan notes Redmayne’s ability to “walk away – literally – with an award…for many disabled people in the audience, this is watching another person fake their identity.”

Lincoln (2012) is a Spielberg classic that comes with a star-studded cast including Sally Field and Daniel Day-Lewis. The magic of hairstyling and makeup had Day-Lewis looking like the 16th US president.

Day-Lewis initially turned down the project, so Liam Neeson was cast instead. But Neeson asked for the part be recast after a table read had him realise he wasn’t suited for the role.

Day-Lewis was once again offered the part and so was subsequently cast.

Abraham Lincoln has been portrayed several times, notably by Walter Huston in 1930 film Abraham Lincoln, and by Henry Fonda in 1939’s Young Mr. Lincoln.

But neither actor had the same resemblance to the Civil War-era president as Day-Lewis.

Most people would be offended being compared to a serial killer, but Theron bears an uncanny resemblance to one hence playing Wuornos in the 2003 biographical crime drama Monster.

The film tells the story of a former sex worker, Wuornos. She killed seven of her clients over the span of one year from 1989 to 1990.

Directed by Patty Jenkins, the film was also produced by Theron and even stars Christina Ricci as the semi-fictionalised version of Wuornos’ jailhouse lover.

Roger Ebert praised the film, writing that “I didn’t recognize [Theron] – but more to the point, I hardly tried.”

Val Kilmer is best known as an underwhelming Batman and comedies like Top Secret! and Real Genius.

But he also starred in an amazingly well-cast biopic. Kilmer played Jim Morrison in The Doors, a film that told the story of the eponymous counterculture rock band of the 60s and 70s.

It received a mixed reception and even controversy after a negative response from Morrison’s family. The Doors has since become a cult film.

Director Oliver Stone expressed interest in having Kilmer play Morrison, which had the actor spend thousands of dollars for an eight-minute audition reel where he showed off his acting chops and singing voice.

There have been many films about John F Kennedy and his wife, like 2016’s Jackie. But in terms of movies about the youngest Kennedy brother, Ted, there’s been just one.

Chappaquiddick, known as The Senator in the UK, tells the story of the so-called Chappaquiddick Incident. This is when Ted Kennedy’s careless driving resulted in the death of his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.

Clarke doesn’t always look similar to Kennedy, and this is no case of happenstance genetics. But it’s the furrowing of the brow, and the steeliness of his gaze that has him looking like the troubled senator.

Casting for legendary rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles should have been a challenge until they found someone who resembled The Genius. His name is Jamie Foxx.

From the gleaming smile to those high cheekbones, the similarities between Foxx and Charles in 2004’s Ray is uncanny.

Foxx shed 30 pounds to take on the role, even having his eyelids glued shut on set.

But for Foxx to get to the set, Charles had his own demands. “We played tandem piano,” Foxx told Today. “He said, ‘If you can play the blues, then you can play this part.’ So we played the blues … [he] said ‘The kid’s got it,’ and then he walked out.”

What if you were to play steroid-cheat supremo Lance Armstrong? Actor Ben Foster already had the natural resemblance to the disgraced cyclist.

Now it’s common for actors to gain or lose weight in accordance with the character, but not many will go as far as Foster did.

To better understand Armstrong, Foster took steroids. “I don’t want to talk about the names of the drugs I took,” Foster said in a 2015 Guardian interview. “These are very serious chemicals and they affect your body in real ways,” Foster continues. “For my own investigation it was important for me privately to understand it. And they work.”

You may have assumed that you’d need a man to play Bob Dylan, but Cate Blanchett proved everyone wrong. I’m Not There is a non-traditional biopic, and had six different actors playing the lead in six different scenarios.

Released in 2007, I’m Not There also stars Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw and Heath Ledger. And they all made convincing Dylans, but not one of them captured the same magic as Blanchett.

That aquiline nose and slender frame made Blanchett looking more like Dylan than some of the taller, burlier actors in the film.

Think Jared Leto, and you’ll be thinking of the bug-eyed waif who fronts 30 Seconds to Mars and played the Joker in Suicide Squad.

But in 2007’s Chapter 27, Leto went through a significant transformation to play the ultimate outsider. He played Mark David Chapman, better known as the man who assassinated John Lennon.

According to the LA Times, Leto drank microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil, in what has to be the polar opposite of a juice cleanse.

The actor-singer gained 67 pounds, putting on weight so quickly that he contracted gout.

Actor, comedian and author Stephen Fry has been compared to Oscar Wilde thanks to his withering humour and that vivacious gusto.

He was the only choice for the lead in 1997’s Wilde. The pair share so much in personality, that they occupy a similarly trailblazing position.

Wilde was a prominent gay playwright, and Fry is a famous gay comedian, so you’d be forgiven for overlooking a lack of physical similarities.

“As I broke the membrane of my 30s and began to develop interesting new chins and a spreading waistline,” Fry notes in conversation with the legendary film critic, “I began to be told I should play Wilde. And he meant a lot to me. If you knew you were gay in the early 1970s, you felt very alone.”

It’s not exactly flattering to share comparisons with Il Duce, but the astonishing similarities between wartime dictator Benito Mussolini and US actor George C Scott can’t be overlooked.

He portrayed Mussolini in the miniseries Mussolini: The Untold Story, which aired in 1985.

Scott caused a stir after refusing the Academy Award for Best Actor for 1970’s Patton. He warned the Academy in advance that he would do so.

Scott claimed that dramatic performances cannot be compared given their unique circumstances. But he can be compared to Mussolini.

Her iconoclastic artwork that brought queerness and womanhood to light, to being plastered across white women’s MacBooks, had Frida Kahlo making an impact in the world.

So for 2002’s Frida, the right actor came along at the right time when casting standards were set high.

Salma Hayek resembles the legendary painter in heritage and brow strength, but she also produced the film, showing her deep connection to Kahlo.

Hayek is a pioneer for Mexican women in Hollywood. She arrived in Tinseltown at the same time as fellow Hispanic actor Antonio Banderas.

Hayek’s first break was in 1995’s Desperado, the second instalment in Robert Rodriguez’s Mexico Trilogy.

But it was her role as Frida Kahlo that had Hayek garnering widespread acclaim.

There were two Truman Capote movies in the mid-2000s. The better known one is Capote, starring an Oscar-winning Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the titular author.

But the better physical resemblance to Capote can be found in 2006’s Infamous, which is a markedly different film that was overshadowed by rival biopic Capote’s success the previous year.

This film stars Toby Jones, and the resemblance is shocking. Hoffman towers a full seven inches taller than the famously short Truman Capote, while Toby Jones is almost the same height as Capote.

The pair even share a broad forehead and tight-lipped smile which add up to a near-perfect resemblance.

Rex Reed of the New York Observer wrote, “they gave the Oscar to the wrong Truman Capote. I do not begrudge the versatile, popular Philip Seymour Hoffman his Oscar for playing the tiny terror in Capote, but he was doing an impression.”

Reed continues, “a diminutive actor with a titanic talent named Toby Jones literally becomes the man himself.”

Bohemian Rhapsody had everyone paying attention to Rami Malek’s portrayal of timeless rock idol Freddie Mercury.

His immortal strut across the Live Aid stage and his wide-eyed wonder at the pleasures of the world had Malek earning a Best Actor win.

But Joe Mazzello’s resemblance to Queen bassist John Deacon is way more convincing. Like the bass player in any band, Mazzello isn’t really front-and-centre.

But his arched nose and wide brows had him looking like the real man.

This is more impressive when you find out that you’ve seen Mazzello before. He played Tim Murphy, the young boy in Jurassic Park.