Examples of Hollywood Homely in Live-Action Films
- Halle Berry:
- In her breakout role Jungle Fever she had to fight Spike Lee's insistence that she was too attractive to play a homeless crack addict. So she washed off her make-up and auditioned again, and won the part. For the duration of filming (eight weeks) she resorted to not showering.
- Monster's Ball just gives her an unflattering haircut and light make-up, and it was enough to put her on Hollywood's Ten Best Beauty to Beast Transformations (in comparison to Charlize Theron in Monster).
- Catwoman (2004) tries to present her as a wallflower at the start — even though her Quirky Curls and outfits with oversized sleeves make her look more cute than mousy. Then after she becomes Catwoman she gives herself a makeover, and the movie stops pretending she's anything other than stunning.
- Charlotte Gainsbourg has made a career out of this trope, playing specifically unattractive characters in some of her biggest roles:
- She plays the title character in Jane Eyre, whose plainness is a major aspect of her character.
- In The Science of Sleep she plays the plain woman whom the main character initially ignores in favor of her more attractive roommate.
- In 21 Grams, she plays a cuckolded wife whose sick husband acquires a more attractive mistress.
- Audrey Hepburn; her characters were supposed to be embarrassingly frumpy and unattractive in such movies as Sabrina, Funny Face, My Fair Lady (until the makeovers)... even though she was voted the most beautiful woman in the world
. Aside from having her wear plain clothes, the movies made no effort to hide her beauty. Values Dissonance is partly at play here — as she didn't quite match the standards of beauty at the timenote , and wasn't as uptight about having her costumes hide her body flaws as other stars. - Kate Winslet, of all people, tends to get this a lot. What makes this especially baffling is that in Heavenly Creatures and A Kid in King Arthur's Court, she plays the more glamorous contrast to a plainer girl.
- Enigma: Even anti-dolled to look ordinary, she's still pretty.
- Little Children: Her supposed frumpiness is a plot point but many viewers don't buy it because it's still Kate Winslet. Roger Ebert found it pretty laughable.
- A key scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind features Jim Carrey's character trying to convince her that she's pretty. This is at least done realistically, as it's shown Clementine has massive body image issues.
- (500) Days of Summer has one random guy react with shock that Summer is dating Tom. He's played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was a teen heartthrob for years. He's given baggy clothes and hair in his eyes, and the rest of the characters state that Summer is out of his league.
- Alien from L.A.: Wanda is supposed to be nerdy, frumpy and awkward, with dorky glasses and bad hair. She's played by supermodel Kathy Ireland.
- In Baby Mama, Dr. Bicknell the fertility specialist is older than most of the other characters and is treated as a disgusting, perverted hag for having young children at her age. Her actress? Sigourney Weaver.
- This trope is skewered in Barbie (2023):
- When the main Barbie has an existential crisis and mourns that she's not pretty or interesting, the narrator chimes in and says "Note to the filmmakers: Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point.", as even when we see her without makeup, she's still stunningly beautiful.
- When the Kens take over Barbieland, one of the Barbies' ploys to distract them is by pretending to be insecure by wearing thick ugly glasses, then have Ken remove the glasses to convince her of her "true" beauty.
- Batman & Robin: before Poison Ivy becomes Poison Ivy, she's mousy scientist Pamela Isley. She's given glasses, baggy clothes and frizzy hair. Then after her transformation she just starts to look like Uma Thurman with red hair.
- Batman Returns brings us Michelle Pfeiffer, then in her early thirties, as Catwoman. Some mousy clothes, frizzy hair, and clumsiness somehow hides her attractiveness from everyone in the movie except Bruce Wayne. It didn't hide it from the audience, who are left trying to square the circle of how the movie is trying to frame that woman as a Crazy Cat Lady spinster nobody would date. Attempts are made to emphasise how mousy and shy she is, and it seems as though her personality was holding her back there, since post-makeover Selina just forgoes her glasses and wears her hair down.
- The film adaptation of Beastly has several examples:
- Lindy is supposed to be a Plain Jane (albeit one who cleans up nicely) who is more concerned with books and her classwork than looking pretty. The movie version casts Vanessa Hudgens in the role, and "uglifies" her with messy hair, bangs, and a boho wardrobe. Apart from being a bit less polished, she looks no different than the "hot" popular girls. Although since the school seems to be very WASP-y, Lindy being mixed race, with her father also being in debt to drug dealers, would alienate her from the in crowd.
- The witch, Kendra, is described as overweight and hideous, with bad teeth and skin, a hooked nose, green hair, and ratty black clothes (i.e. like a traditional Wicked Witch). In the film, Kendra is...a slightly-plump Mary-Kate Olsen with bleached eyebrows, heavy makeup (with the odd facial piercing and tattoo) and (fashionably) eccentric hairstyles and outfits. She looks like a Gothic runway model, but the popular students still treat her as if she's hideous (with Kyle calling her a "self-mutilated, tattooed Frankenskank").
- The same goes for any of the other "ugly" students Kyle puts down during his campaign rally. None of them are even below average appearance-wise, but he still treats them as if they're hideously disfigured. Of particular note is a shy boy whom Kyle says has "a face like a burnt Lego."
- Then there is the beast himself. In the book, he's turned into an actual beast (fur, fangs, et cetera). In the movie, he just loses his hair and gets a lot of tattoos and scars. Not ideal, but nowhere near as bad as being a literal monster. The way he reacts to this more realistic appearance (coupled with the way he treats average-looking and marginally attractive people) adds a lot of new implications about his character.
- In Be Kind Rewind, Melonie Diaz's character, Alma, is played up as ugly when the male filmmakers are forced to take her over her more attractive sister. They achieve this by... having her sniff and rub her nose a couple of times. It's quickly forgotten and she's the hot girl for the rest of the movie. Especially egregious as she had just starred in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints playing the neighborhood hottie.
- Black Christmas (2006) has a sorority sister called Eve, who's meant to be the weird one in comparison to the glamorous beauties in the main cast. She has her hair pulled back into an unflattering ponytail, given Nerd Glasses and framed with dutch angles. Her actress Kathleen Kole was actually a model.
- In The Breakfast Club, Allison "Basket Case" Reynolds is depicted as an outcast who is seen as weird and unappealing. At the end of the movie, she even gets a makeover to look more traditionally attractive. And while her act-crazy-for-attention behavior might be off-putting, a lot of people would argue that she doesn't actually look bad. Many viewers preferred her stylish gothic pre- makeover look (messy hair, heavy eyeliner, dark thrift shop clothes) over her generically pretty post-makeover one —including the actress herself, Ally Sheedy. In Sheedy's defense this was Truth in Television: Sheedy herself has stated that her career suffered because she was often considered "not sexy enough" at the time:"I was told point-blank that my career was moving slowly because “nobody wants to fuck you.” There was something about me, sexually, that wasn’t selling."
- Blended: Hilary Freidman, due to being raised by her widower father, has no fashion sense and is unattractive to the point of being confused for a boy and being nicknamed Larry. The problem is that Hilary is played by the feminine and beautiful Bella Thorne. They try to make her less attractive via an unflattering haircut and clothes, but it doesn't really work. When Hilary gets a makeover, she literally just looks like Bella normally does.
- The '50s educational short film Body Care and Grooming tries to make the point that you're more attractive if you bathe regularly and wear presentable clothes... but the opening scene absurdly claims an attractive actress is repulsive to men because her hair's unkempt and her clothes haven't been ironed.
- Bessie Love's character in The Broadway Melody is supposed to be the "talented but plain" sister in a singing and dancing duo. This◊ is Bessie Love.
- Brokeback Mountain:
- In the short story by Annie Proulx, Ennis is described as "scruffy" and Jack is described as short and having buckteeth. Needless to say, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal do not exactly spring to mind.
- Besides, during their time herding sheep on the mountain, both are cleaned up quite a bit better than real cowboys would be.
- Carrie:
- The book's first two adaptations manage to skirt around this with the titular character; in the original Sissy Spacek's character is said that she would look nicer if she made an effort, as demonstrated at the prom. And the 2002 remake has Angela Bettis go down the Beauty Inversion route to be believable as an outcast. But the 2013 version casts the beautiful Chloë Grace Moretz as Carrie. Even if her hair is messed up, it's still fashionably layered with perfect highlights. She does at least work hard to make Carrie's attitude believable for a socially awkward girl.
- In the 2013 version of Carrie, mean girl Chris Hargenson is portrayed by the beautiful Portia Doubleday but that’s all she has going for her with her thin, dark Brown hair, ratty hair extensions, fake tan, ultra makeup and Psychotic personality. It’s actually implied that Chris is jealous of Carrie’s more natural beauty.
- Grizabella of Cats is meant to be a withered old has-been past her prime. She was quite beautiful in her Glory Days, but that is long gone. The 2019 film has Jennifer Hudson in the role, who was only 37, and not attempted to be rendered in any way uglier or more grizzled than the other cast members.
- Circle Of Friends: Minnie Driver's character is supposed to be dowdy and heavyset (at one point she refers to herself as a "heifer"). Even playing her against the gorgeous Saffron Burrows doesn't make this work.
- Countess Dracula dramatizes the story of Elisabeth Bathory, who legend has it bathed in the blood of young women to restore her youth and beauty. At the start she's meant to be past her prime, yet is played by 60s and 70s sex symbol Ingrid Pitt in old age make-up and a matronly dress to hide her figure. Once the blood has its effect, Ingrid Pitt just looks like herself and showcases her beauty. They do, however, have her become more deformed each time she snaps back into her older self.
- The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942) has the title character mercy-dating the daughter of a divorcing couple on whose case his father, a judge, is working. She's depicted as such a "droop" that at one point Andy has to pay his chums to dance with her at a school prom. She's also played by Donna Reed.
- Dogfight, starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor, is about a crew of Marines who challenge each other to a 'dogfight' — finding the ugliest girl they can and bringing her to a party. Phoenix's character selects Taylor's character in order to win this 'dogfight'. By Hollywood standards, she's hideous. By any real-world standards, she's reasonably attractive. Interestingly enough, the script had her written as being overweight, but Lili Taylor endeared the director with her performance (though she did have to gain weight and have her costumes padded). The actress herself felt that it would make for an interesting statement on the men's views that they would see her as unattractive:"Why don’t we say more about the guys’ perceptions? And I think we did. We were also able to justify, because she was a little overweight, that’s why she was picked, her being a little overweight and it being down to the 11th hour. So that’s what I find more interesting about it, was the definition of beauty."
- The entire premise of The DUFF hinges on the notion that Mae Whitman could pass for a "Designated Ugly Fat Friend", just because she's slightly huskier than the other leading female character. Though it's made clear that you don't have to be ugly or fat to count as such. Still, it's emphasized that she's unpopular because she's awkward and shy and has "unpopular tastes," but even then, someone as attractive as Whitman makes awkwardness much more charming and endearing, and her "strange tastes" (liking old or obscure movies) aren't really that strange or unpopular enough to warrant anyone running for the hills. A lot of her status also relies on the fact that her friends are more 'traditional' in terms of personality and beauty, and people would rather use her as a stepping stone to get to them.
- The Enchanted Cottage: The main woman is so "homely" that no guys will dance with her, young boys comment on her looks, and she generally limits her social life in despair. Later, a man breaks off with his fiancée and considers suicide over a barely visible war scar. As the two fall in love, they become beautiful in each other's eyes — represented on camera by a strange blur on their features.
- Failure to Launch: Justin Bartha is the ugly one. Not the plain one and not played as a joke; repeatedly throughout the movie he is referred to as being ugly. So is Zooey Deschanel; they are hooked up by friends on the theory that since they are both so ugly neither would be able to find anyone else.
- In the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring Sam remarks that Aragorn aka Strider “looks foul”. True, Sam doesn’t trust him at that point, but “foul” is a word that does not apply to the obviously incredibly handsome and rugged Viggo Mortensen. This probably due to lifting the line from the book where Aragorn is described as weatherbeaten and shady looking when he first appears as a ranger and it’s only later when he symbolically becomes more kingly as The Leader that he is described as handsome. In the film he’s a looker from the start, so Sam’s line is confusing. It would have been even more egregious with the original actor for Aragorn — Pretty Boy Stuart Townsend!
- Uma Thurman gets this treatment in Final Analysis, where a lack of makeup is enough to make her the mousy and plain younger sister to the glamorous Kim Basinger.
- Final Destination often seems to do this with its heroines.
- The first film's female lead is Clear Rivers — who's meant to be a loner that Alex wouldn't have noticed until the disaster bonded them. As she was played by late '90s/early 2000s super hottie Ali Larter, her blonde hair is dyed brown and cut into an unflattering fringe, and she's given baggy clothes to suit her 'weird artist' persona.
- The second film likewise has AJ Cook as the plainer girl in her group of friends — in contrast to her more outgoing and vampy friend Sheena. AJ Cook likewise dyes her hair dark brown and wears modest coats and cardigans for most of the film.
- The third film's script describes the protagonist Wendy as "pretty but not the most attractive girl in school". They cast Mary Elizabeth Winstead and her hair is lightly tousled.
- Frankie & Johnny: In the stage original, the plain girl was played, to great acclaim, by Kathy Bates, who fits the casting requirement by being not particularly physically attractive. For the movie version, the part was recast to Michelle "Catwoman" Pfeiffer.
- ''Film/Freaky": The main character Millie dresses as the school mascot while several football players make demeaning comments about her face. They change their tunes after she switches minds with a serial killer, and starts dressing in a leather jacket and tight jeans. Millie is played by Creator Kathryn Newton, and while she plays the shy, mousy Millie well, it's hard justify calling her conventionally ugly on any level.
- Georgy Girl: The main character Georgy, meant to be a "brontosaurus" of a girl, is played by Lynn Redgrave. Because of this the character, despite being slightly overweight and frequently making grotesque faces, is still attractive. The trope is somewhat justified in that Georgy's insecurity and social awkwardness make her seem less attractive than she actually is.
- Gone with the Wind cast famous screen beauty Olivia de Havilland as the "plain" Melanie. They get around this by giving her very simple dresses in contrast to the other ladies' elaborate finery.
- Parodied in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Drax and Mantis are both pretty good-looking, but their species have different standards of beauty and as a result, they find each other physically repulsive, even after they become close friends. When Drax is made to imagine them being in a sexual relationship, he comes startlingly close to vomiting. And during the ending, they have this exchange:Mantis: It's beautiful.
Drax: Yes it is. And so are you.
[beat]
Drax: On the inside. - Halloween (1978) portrays Laurie Strode as the shy girl who supposedly scares guys away and has never had a date. She's played by the gorgeous Jamie Lee Curtis, who would later become a sex symbol in the 80s. She herself said she identified more with the cheerleader friend Lynda than Laurie.
- Harry Potter:
- Hermione Granger is given a significant dose of Adaptational Attractiveness — the book counterpart is described as having bushy hair and large front teeth. They did initially give Emma Watson fake teeth but she found it hard to act in them. From the second film onwards, her Messy Hair was cutely curled and she was often seen in flattering clothes, with not even an attempt to look plain. While the films didn't incorporate too much of this aspect of the character in the adaptation (the only time in the films she's referred to as "homely" is in an article by Rita Skeeter, not meant to be taken seriously), the She Cleans Up Nicely moment from the Yule Ball is still intact — making it a little odd that Harry's jaw dropped at seeing Hermione dolled up, when she looks quite good in every other scene too. J. K. Rowling even says that it was lucky she spoke to Emma on the phone before meeting with her (knowing she was perfect when she spoke for a minute without taking a breath) and going Oh, Crap! at how pretty she was.
- Luna Lovegood mildly as well. The book's description is not too flattering — implying she doesn't wash too often and her hair is quite tangled and unkempt (especially in comparison to a younger photo Harry sees of her before her mother's death). Evanna Lynch plays the role in the films and is positively gorgeous, while her fashions look more endearingly quirky than off-putting. Evanna's portrayal of Luna's oddball personality, however, is spot-on, at least making it believable that people might avoid her. Indeed, Evanna wrote in her autobiography about her issues with body image, including being hospitalised for anorexia.
- The films had to seriously dress down Matthew Lewis from Order of the Phoenix onward; Neville is meant to be the runt of the group, but the actor went through a massive growth spurt and filled out, so they had to give him shaggy hair and unflattering sweaters and cardigans. They gave him something of an Adrenaline Makeover for the final two films, reflecting his newfound confidence thanks to Character Development. Tellingly, a few years later he starred in Me Before You as the latter in a Betty and Veronica love triangle.
- Helena Bonham Carter is given bad teeth, slightly messy hair, and pale skin in an attempt to capture the 'Azkaban had taken most of her beauty' description of Bellatrix Lestrange. Instead, she came across as more of an Unkempt Beauty.
- The Harvey Girls includes Alma from Ohio, who mentions several times that she couldn't get married because her face is so ugly. She's played by Virginia O'Brien, on the left, no less attractive than co-stars Judy Garland and Cyd Charisse. Her character is something of a Lad Ette, suggesting there's some Femininity Failure to go with it.
- Heartbreakers has Paige react with disgust that her mother liked Dean, claiming she has to be in serious denial when she says "Dean was kind of cute". You'd think Ray Liotta was a hunchbacked leper from how she goes on about him.
- Heathers:
- Betty Finn is to be seen as an uncool nerd, and so is given glasses and a frumpy looking cardigan. She merely looks cute, and not too different from the actual Heathers.
- Martha Dunstock is a legitimate aversion though, but the effects of it were felt in the auditions. The character is meant to be seen as unpopular because of her weight, and casting directors only brought in girls who merely weren't Hollywood Thin. Insisting that a genuine heavyset actress be cast, they found Carrie Lynn performing stand-up in a bar. While she is indeed very cute in her own right, it is believable that she would be bullied for her appearance.
- The Help: A plot point in both the book and the movie is the plainness of Skeeter. However, in the film version, Skeeter is played by the lovely Emma Stone. Most viewers find it difficult to believe that a character as beautiful as that would have trouble attracting men, even if the filmmakers tried to make her "ugly" by giving her "frizzy" hair.
- Mary Bee Cuddy, the frontier spinster heroine of The Homesman played by Hilary Swank. Two men refuse to marry her, partly because she's too "plain." While not movie-star gorgeous, she's an average nice-looking woman, not unattractive by real-world standards. (However, in both the movie and the novel, it seems likely that their primary reason for rejecting her is the other one they give, that she's "bossy.")
- The Hours: Nicole Kidman, renowned bombshell, is given a prosthetic nose to play homely writer, Virginia Woolf.
- All the characters in The House Bunny Shelly meets at the sorority qualify — most notably Natalie, who is explicitly said to be a virgin and undesirable, even by the standards of the Betas. It's implied that no guy would ever be interested in her...despite the fact that she's played by Emma Stone, and her plainness is really nothing more than glasses, a ponytail, and tending toward bland clothing.
- I Know What You Did Last Summer:
- Elsa, Helen's older sister, was given a significant dose of Adaptational Attractiveness compared to the book. The script wrote her as plain, but the director decided to cast Bridgette Wilson, who was a former teen beauty queen. She's given a pair of glasses to make Helen seem like the beauty of the family, but she looks like a supermodel herself.
- Julie is meant to look like "shit run over twice" thanks to the guilt of the accident. Jennifer Love Hewitt's hair is just worn straight (compared to how curly it was in the opening) and she's slightly pale. Then again, that comment is coming from Barry and it's used to show him as a Jerkass.
- The Ipcress File: Michael Caine is playing a British spy who's supposed to be an inversion of the James Bond-style spy — instead of suave and gorgeous, he's supposed to be a funny-looking Cockney who seduces women by cooking for them. Unfortunately, he wasn't unattractive — he was Michael Caine, in glasses. He even loses his glasses for the second half of the movie.
- Film adaptations of Jane Eyre are frequent victims of this trope. Jane is portrayed in the novel as being plain (hence the trope Plain Jane). However actresses who have played her on-screen include: Virginia Bruce◊, Joan Fontaine◊, Susanna York, Charlotte Gainsbourg◊ and Mia Wasikowska◊.
- Jennifer's Body subverts the trope while still exploiting it anyway. The titular Jennifer is the attractive Alpha Bitch and Needy is her "plain Jane" nerdy best friend. Needy is played by the stunning Amanda Seyfried. However, it is mentioned that Needy has to dress herself down whenever she's out with Jennifer (she's forbidden from showing any cleavage) — so it seems the latter is aware that Needy is a pretty girl who she doesn't want upstaging her. The director and screenwriter joke on the DVD commentary that only in Hollywood would Amanda Seyfried be cast as the unattractive one. Chip also tells her she "looks totally hot" in her prom dress, but she then jokes about him being delirious because he's dying.
- Knocked Up has a ton of this. Ben is portrayed as schlubby and unappealing, but Seth Rogen is by no means bad-looking. Meanwhile Debbie frets continually about getting old and no longer being attractive anymore. Leslie Mann was only 35 at the time and is just too conventionally attractive for this to be plausible.
- Last Action Hero: Lampshaded, when Danny Maddigan tries to prove that they're in a film by pointing out that none of the women are ugly, to which Jack Slater responds:Jack: No, this is California.
- Legally Blonde has Academic Alpha Bitch Vivian Kensington, portrayed by the very beautiful Selma Blair as the rival of the stunning, beautiful, Platinum Blonde Elle Woods. After Elle’s handsome boyfriend Warner dumps her after they graduate college because he wants a serious, preppy girl, Elle studies and gets into Harvard Law school, where Warner is training to be a Lawyer. However, she discovers he is engaged to an aloof, cold young Brunette, Vivian. While Vivian’s preppy sweaters and short Brown hair make her less attractive compared to Elle, she’s by no means ugly. Elle acknowledged that Vivian is not bad-looking, but that she just needs to pluck her eyebrows and change her style.
- Jennifer Coolidge portrays middle-aged Paulette, who considers herself a mess because of her "stretch marks and fat ass", but she is only a bit frumpy and lacks self-confidence. By the end of the film, she's able to snag the hot delivery man who always flirts with her, with a little help from Elle. Keep in mind, this is the same actress who helped coin the term "MILF" in American Pie.
- Limitless tries to present Bradley Cooper as a loser before he takes the drug by giving him a messy ponytail that he cuts off in a Makeover Montage to look like himself.
- Deconstructed in Unforgiven. The plot is kicked off when a beautiful prostitute named Delilah is attacked and cut up by an angry client. Her coworkers put out a bounty for her attacker. Then we see Delilah in person and her injuries amount to a few small, superficial scratches on her face that haven't completely healed yet.
- The character Jo March in Little Women, meant to be a plain tomboy, has been played by some of Hollywood's most attractive actresses, including Katharine Hepburn, Susan Dey, and Winona Ryder. The likes of Katharine Hepburn (in the 1933 film) and Saoirse Ronan (in 2019) are considered the more apt casting choices as, while very pretty actresses, they are not conventionally so and more believable against more classic beauties as the other sisters.
- Love Potion Number Nine: Even Hollywood isn't usually shameless enough to pass off Sandra Bullock as "ugly", but she is that town's go-to actress when they need an approachable, plain, Girl Next Door type. "Usually" is the key word there, as she is supposed to be the ugly type in this film. They don't really go out of their way to make her "ugly", but merely extremely nerdy and uncaring about her appearance — no makeup, thick glasses, overbite, mousy hair, and unflattering clothes. Once she starts gaining confidence, she works on all these and her beauty shines through.
- Marty: Ernest Borgnine (no prize himself, although that's acknowledged in the film) goes on a date with a "dog" played by former model Betsy Blair, and then-wife of Gene Kelly.
- Mean Girls:
- The film straddles the line with Janis. She's supposed to be an 'art freak' and considered unpopular, despite being played by Lizzy Caplan. Producers even came close to turning her down, finding her too beautiful for the character. As she was the best audition, they opted to instead give her an alternative/goth appearance rather than dressing her down. There is a big fan theory that Janis is, in fact, a former Alpha Bitch who got betrayed by Regina the same way Cady plans to do to the latter — and Lizzy Caplan's beauty is a contributing factor. However, there is another factor—as the film is set in the early 2000s, when homophobia was much more prevalent, Regina's rumor that Janis is a lesbian would unfortunately be enough to tank her social status no matter what she looks like.
- Gretchen was originally written to be an unattractive girl who was only in the Plastics due to her father's wealth. This was dropped and she was played by the very pretty Lacey Chabert. There are remnants of this in how Damian has to rig the voting to get her nominated for Spring Fling Queen and Regina does say that Gretchen isn't pretty — but in this case, it comes across more as cattiness on Regina's part than Gretchen being considered unattractive.
- Miss Congeniality plays with the trope. Sandra Bullock has to get a makeover to become an Undercover Model. While she's chosen to go undercover primarily because she looks like she could pass for a pageant contestant, the jaw-dropped reactions of her co-workers and the pageant director still feel a little overblown. The pageant director even mentions that Dennis Rodman looked better in a dress when they first met although that might have been said out of spite for being arrested. It does help that she's shown having the table manners of Jabba the Hutt and the charisma of a drunk truck driver, which justifies it further.
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding: While Nia Vardalos is a very pretty woman she is anything but the typical Hollywood bombshell, which many people have stated helped make the film that much more appealing. Her homely look genuinely made her plain, and getting the makeover did wonders.
- From Roger Ebert's film review: "Everyone in this movie looks like they could be a real person. The romance involves not impossibly attractive people, but a 30-year-old woman who looks OK when she pulls herself out of her Frump Phase, and a vegetarian high school teacher who urgently needs the services of Supercuts. Five minutes into the film, I relaxed, knowing it was set in the real world, and not in the Hollywood alternative universe where Julia Roberts can't get a date."
- No Time to Die: Main villain Lyutsifer Safin was disfigured in a chemical weapon attack as a kid, which served as his Start of Darkness, but the scar makeup on Rami Malek does absolutely nothing to compromise his attractiveness, especially compared to real-life survivors of acid attacks.
- Now, Voyager: Bette Davis spends the first few scenes unconscionably unattractive by having... baggy clothes, unplucked eyebrows, bun hair, and glasses. It's an early example of how to 'do an Ugly Betty'; the film came out in 1942. Bette herself wanted to look even homelier and really have her costumes padded out, but the studio rejected the look for being "too grotesque". However, in a flashback to Charlotte's life at age twenty, she's shown to be quite cute — demonstrating that she's a naturally good-looking woman who's just let herself go. The film likewise downplays the cuteness of child actress Janis Wilson as Jerry's daughter Tina (glasses and messy hair) so that she can have a She Cleans Up Nicely moment to signal her character development.
- In Only You, Andrew McCarthy's character has to make a choice between two potential girlfriends, one who is beautiful and one who is supposedly not beautiful but otherwise desirable. The supposedly plain-looking woman is played by Helen Hunt. McCarthy has to face the dilemma of whether he should settle for a woman whose worst flaw is she is only as attractive as Helen Hunt.
- In Outlaw, Rupert Friend's character is violently attacked and scarred in the face before the events of the film, and it's repeatedly stated that his good looks have been ruined, though in fact it really only served to make him more appealing, particularly with the long, flowing hair.
- Parodied in The Other Guys. Will Ferrell is constantly apologizing for his wife, even calling her a "battle-ax," when she is played by the obviously stunning Eva Mendes and he is the only one who doesn't realize this.
- Penelope (2006): Christina Ricci looks cute with a pig's snout, but some of her suitors are so horrified by the sight of her that they jump out of second-story windows to get away.
- In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Erik is supposed to be so hideous-looking that he used to be a circus freak attraction, but thanks to one of the most infamous cases of Adaptational Attractiveness, his unmasked self just looks like Gerard Butler with a mild rash on one side of his face.
- Ashley Tisdale played a nerdy girl in Picture This. One of the earliest shown pieces of 'evidence' that she's a nerd is a scene that makes a big deal about her wearing 'granny panties' Except, it's not grannie panties, it's clearly a thong; you can see the leg holes of it. It's a cartoon print thong, but still a thong. The most the film does is give her tomboy-looking clothes and big glasses.
- Polar: Vanessa Hudgens' stunning looks are downplayed a lot by dressing her in baggy clothes and not having her put on any make-up. This makes sense from an in-story perspective since her character is reeling from past trauma.
- In Portrait Of A Lady: Isabel and Henrietta go on about how ugly Caspar Goodwood is. That's Viggo Mortensen. Viggo Mortensen with slightly silly hair, but still...
- Pride and Prejudice:
- In the 2005 movie, Lizzie Bennett, described by Mr. Darcy as 'tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me', is played by Keira Knightley. While this is used to show Darcy as a jerk, it's made clear older sister Jane is the beauty of the county while Elizabeth is fairly attractive but not stunningly beautiful — words that do not describe Keira Knightley.note It's even worse with Mary. Once they get into their ballgowns, it becomes ridiculous to call her plain or plainer than her sisters. The movie also files off Mary's more unlikeable traits — such as being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All and anti-social snob.
- In the 1995 miniseries, the older sister (the pretty one, according to dialogue) is plain compared to Lizzie. This crosses over with Values Dissonance; Susannah Harker, who played Jane, fits the Regency ideal of beauty perfectly, but that ideal has shifted to the point where modern viewers consider Jennifer Ehle more attractive. Additionally, there was a fashion in the Regency period for dark-haired, pale-skinned women, so Jennifer Ehle might have attracted more attention in that era as well.
- The Princess Diaries: Mia is supposed to be an ugly duckling before her princess makeover. However, wearing glasses and having a bad perm isn't enough to make Anne Hathaway◊ look ugly. Sure, she looks a lot better after her princess makeover, but she never looks that terrible. She certainly doesn't warrant the massive wince Paolo gives when he first sees her.
- The Quiet: Camilla Belle's character is described as being unattractive by several characters. One character goes as far to say that she is a hermaphrodite. The only thing that makes her "ugly" is the fact she has short hair, minimal make-up on, and wears boys' clothing. In real life, Camilla Belle is as beautiful as Elisha Cuthbert.
- Combined with Adaptational Attractiveness, this is the case with Samantha, a.k.a. Art3mis, in the film adaptation of Ready Player One. In the book, she has a dark red birthmark over the right side of her face, over which she has a great deal of insecurity. In the movie, the birthmark is much smaller, covering a small part of her forehead and her right eye, which she keeps hidden behind her hair. Moreover, she's played by the beautiful Olivia Cooke. Naturally, Honest Trailers had a field day with this, with the Narrator making a reaction of exaggerated disgust upon seeing her.
- In the Revenge of the Nerds series, Omega Mu is an entire sorority of these, and become a Distaff Counterpart to the Tri-Lamb nerds. They're not traditionally pretty and are (at least in their first appearance) dressed and made up to look frumpy and off-putting, but turn out to be surprisingly fun at parties — not to mention they don't have any hangups about nerds. In the first movie, Booger remarks that "They're cows!" and has to resort to weed to get along with them; in the third he's absolutely excited to have a chance to party with the Mu again.
- In The Saint (1997), the character Emma Russell is implied to be a wallflower who rarely receives male attention, which makes her very vulnerable to Simon Templar's seduction technique. She's played by Elisabeth Shue, who is quite attractive.
- She's All That: A teenage film take on the Pygmalion story involves a bet to get any girl in school to win prom queen. After scanning the whole school, they settle on the obviously attractive Rachael Leigh Cook as the least likely to be named prom queen. She just wears glasses and paint-colored overalls — not to mention being a bit of a klutz. A minor makeover is all she needs to become a prom queen. The film does at least make an attempt to address this by having the character point out that the reason Rachael Leigh Cook would be a hard sell for prom queen is not so much her looks as her scary and inaccessible personality. Not Another Teen Movie parodies this by having the guys scan the crowd and decide that the conjoined twins, hippie albino, hunchback, and others are not ugly enough, but that the girl with glasses, a ponytail, and paint-covered overalls (played by the clearly attractive Chyler Leigh) is the ugliest by far.
- She's Out of My League: has characters assign attractiveness values to each other. Kirk (played by Jay Baruchel) is given a 5. Many of the other ratings could be disputed by viewers.
- In Sin City, Marv states that he's so intimidating that he could never even hire a prostitute. Mickey Rourke wears prosthetics to exaggerate his facial features and match the comics, but the result does not say "ugly." With his lantern jaw and large nose, he looks more like an extremely weathered superhero.
- In Sleepover, the lead female runs into a "ticket girl" who couldn't go into the prom because she has never been able to get a date. The actress playing the ticket girl? Summer Glau.
- In Sorority Boys, most of the girls in Delta Omega Gamma, the "loser" sorority, really are plain in appearance... except for the president, a cute blonde with Meganekko glasses. Guess who the main love interest is?
- In the 1983 film adaptation of Sparkling Cyanide, Iris, the "plain but clever" sister of the family, is played by beautiful Deborah Raffin, a model. No attempt is made to make her unattractive except giving her less revealing dresses and less brightly-coloured makeup than her Brainless Beauty sister wears.
- The Spectacular Now plays with this. Sutter's best friend reacts with shock that he's choosing to date Aimee Finicky. While she's a shy geek girl, she's still Shailene Woodley. Shailene notably insisted on not wearing make-up for the role — feeling Aimee wouldn't — but she's still a cutie. Sutter even says that two guys were checking her out at the first party he takes her to. When she dolls up for the prom near the end, she's just as gorgeous as any other girl in the film.
- Spider-Man: Each of the different films play around with this, with Dawson Casting conflicts matters.
- Tobey Maguire from the Spider-Man Trilogy did an excellent job playing Peter as an awkward wallflower, and while Maguire is by no means ugly (he is in fact quite the Pretty Boy, with innocent blue Puppy-Dog Eyes, and is often mistaken for Mr. Fanservice Jake Gyllenhaal and vice versa), he isn't quite conventionally handsome (even James Franco meanly said he had "frog-like" features), which fits the geeky character Peter is written as. Though Maguire's Peter Parker still acts awkward even when he's Spider-Man, which differs from the comic where he's a quip happy Thrill Seeker. Not helping matters is the fact that he is the most muscular Live-Action Peter Parker to date and throughout the movies, he had to wear baggy clothes to hide his ripped physique underneath.
- Andrew Garfield from The Amazing Spider-Man Series plays this more straight, though this ends up being Truer to the Text as a result. He does do a good job acting geeky and awkward, but since Garfield is a more conventionally handsome lead, his "loser" portrayal is presented as him being really shy (including having a stutter), especially around girls, as well as being a scruffy dresser with a bad haircut. The sequel actually utilises this to show Peter's Character Development, as by graduation he'd completely grown out of this, having a much nicer haircut with an improved wardrobe, as the experiences in the first film had improved his self-confidence.
- Tom Holland from the MCU plays this as well as Garfield did, as Tom's ripped physique and handsome face led to memes about people being glad he's not actually 15, and though he's said to be an unpopular loser, he's easily the most handsome kid in his class and doesn't appear to have any trouble making friends (especially as he now goes to a charter school that caters to young intellectuals). Like Garfield, there's at least attempts to show Peter being shy around girls as he has trouble asking out Liz and MJ, but he doesn't seem to struggle at casual conversations.
- Strictly Ballroom: In a similar manner to Nia Vardalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Tara Morice is not typical Hollywood stunning. However, her transformation as Fran is nothing◊ short of breathtaking.
- Tamara: The eponymous character is considered unattractive before she undergoes her Evil Makeover. Before that, it is just the very attractive Jenna Dewan with no make-up on and unflattering clothing. The first time we see her in the movie, she's having a dream about what she would be like if she were attractive, demonstrating the fact that Dewan is an absolute knockout. It makes the attempts to present her as "ugly" afterward laughable. It's understandable that they had to cast a hot chick in order to make her transformation believable.
- Many critics got a lot of mileage out of mocking Tyler Perry's Temptation for presenting Lance Gross as the safe, bland alternative to sinister charmer Robbie Jones, even though both men are equally charming, equally handsome and have matching six-pack abs.
- The Ten Commandments (1956) goes on (and on and on) about the noble choice Moses makes to marry the plain Sephora over the gorgeous Nefretiri. The filmmakers make Yvonne De Carlo look "plain" by putting dirt on her face in most scenes, and not giving her the sparkly dresses that Anne Baxter wears, but she's still Yvonne De Carlo◊.
- Thoroughly Modern Millie: Miss Dorothy is drop-dead gorgeous while Millie pales in comparison. Miss Dorothy is believable enough as she's played by Mary Tyler Moore but Millie is played by Julie Andrews; young, cute Julie Andrews wearing flashy flapper dresses.
- In Total Recall (2012), a not-uglified-at-all Colin Farrell is presented as the in-universe Ugly Guy to Kate Beckinsale's Hot Wife.
- Janeane Garofalo. Despite being cute, she was almost always cast as unattractive and caustic characters. For instance The Truth About Cats & Dogs, with Roger Ebert flat-out stating in his review, "The movie is based upon the presumption that Garofalo is not pretty, and of course, she is." She was outspoken about her frustration with the typecasting and eventually lost a lot of weight so that she could get other roles.
- V. in Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt, to an extent. She comments that other kids mock her for her overbite; aside from said overbite and her wearing braces (both of which are barely noticeable), the film does nothing to deter from the fact that she's played by Elle Fanning.
- Vampire Academy: Natalie Dashkov is a very shy, awkward gawky vampire nerd girl who hangs out with the heroines. In the movie, she's Sarah Hyland in glasses.
- A Walk to Remember: The character of Jamie Sullivan. Although the character was never intended to be unattractive (merely unconcerned with her appearance) the audience has a hard time believing the shock of the other characters during her Beautiful All Along moment given actress Mandy Moore's natural beauty.
- Wanted: The producers considered James McAvoy to be the runt of the litter when it came to casting Wesley Gibson's character, but ultimately chose him because they felt he looked so regular that viewers would be able to relate to him more.
- The portrayal of Eunice in What's Up, Doc? combines this with Values Dissonance. Despite being played by Madeline Khan, she's the target of multiple ugly jokes in the film, mainly from Barbra Streisand's character of Judy. This, along with Eunice being supposedly a needy, high-maintenance shrew, is supposed to make the audience want Howard to end up with Judy, despite Judy being an obsessive troublemaking stalker who brings chaos wherever she shows up.
- The most egregious example comes from the 1960 film Where the Boys Are where Connie Francis's character◊ is supposed to have a hard time finding a date that isn't intimidated by her athletic abilities and is supposed to be overall unattractive, with the actress involved, it's hard to take it at face value.
- While You Were Sleeping presents Sandra Bullock of all people as a shy, mousey Chicago transportation employee who seems to have few friends or loved ones. Perhaps invoked, since her character's primary problem in the movie is less physical attractiveness and more self-esteem; her 'unattractiveness' mainly comes from her character's tendency to wear unflattering and oversized clothing that reflects her general lack of confidence in herself. What's revealed of the backstory also implies that her lack of friends is mainly because she's only relatively recently moved to the city to take care of her ailing father, only for him to pass away not long before the events of the movie.
- The Woman in White adaptations are chronically affected by the trope. Marian Halcombe, a Butter Face lady who is explicitly described as very ugly, especially in contrast with her beautiful sister, is always played by good-looking actresses such as Tara Fitzgerald or Jessie Buckley.
- Wonder Woman 1984 gives us Diana's archenemy, Cheetah aka Barbara Minerva. Much like Catwoman in Batman Returns, Barbara pre-transformation is awkward and mousy, with frizzy hair, baggy dresses, and giant glasses, and she's completely forgettable to all of her coworkers except Diana. Not only is Kristen Wiig still beautiful, but her sense of fashion was actually trendy in the '80s for women in their day-to-day lives, whereas her Evil Makeover made her look like an overdone pop star from that decade.
- In The Wrestler Cassidy is supposed to be a washed-up stripper who can't get customers for lap dances. The problem is that Marisa Tomei is way too hot to pull it off and most people believe she's only gotten more attractive the more she's aged.
- In A Wrinkle in Time (2018) Meg considers herself unattractive becuase she wears glasses and lacks confidence, which causes her to be bullied. Later on she is confronted by "better Meg" who looks exactly the same as her except missing the glasses and is wearing a stylish outfit. note
- Who did they get to play Kevin James' Plain Jane best friend in Zookeeper? Rosario Dawson!
- Matilda in Zoolander. It's a deliberate joke because the movie itself is a joke and stars male models.
