How to Win An Award in Hollywood: Take Off Your Makeup

Attention Hollywood actresses: Looking for a short cut to an Oscar nod? Go for the grunge. Today’s Golden Globe nominations feature a slew of leading ladies (Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Rosamund Pike, Julianne Moore) who purposefully deglammed themselves for their roles in 2014. Call it the Charlize Theron effect—the actress won an Oscar for gaining 30 pounds, shaving her eyebrows and donning prosthetic teeth to play a serial killer in Monster in 2003— as Hollywood’s golden girls like Reese Witherspoon and Rosamund Pike lose the glitz and glam for unmade faces, normcore fashion, and a few crazy moments. Here are some of their best down-and-out roles of a lifetime from present to the past. Sometimes their efforts strike Oscar gold, sometimes it just means an post-shoot visit to the spa.