17 Actors Who Portrayed Real-Life People and Nailed It

Portraying a famous character is always a challenge, especially if this character is a real-life person. To be convincing in this role, an actor has to carefully study the facial expressions, gestures, movements, and many other things of the person they’re going to portray on-screen. And some actors managed to brilliantly cope with this task.

Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, The Crown

Jessica Chastain as Tammy Wynette, George & Tammy

Angela Bassett as Tina Turner, What’s Love Got to Do with It

Mark Rylance as Maurice Flitcroft, The Phantom of the Open

Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis, Feud

Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein, Maestro

Naomi Ackie as Whitney Houston, I Wanna Dance with Somebody

James Franco as Hugh Hefner, Lovelace

Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren, The Girl

Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till, Till

Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford, Feud

John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, American Crime Story

Kerry Washington as Anita Hill, Confirmation

Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier, My Week With Marilyn

Kristen Stewart as Jean Seberg, Seberg

Trevante Rhodes as Mike Tyson, Mike

Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Do you know any other actors who were brilliant in portraying a real-life person on-screen? Tell us in the comments below.