The late Roger Ailes is making a weird comeback of sorts in 2019. First there was the Russell Crowe’s TV miniseries about the disgraced Fox News CEO and now there’s a new drama film, Bombshell, starring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie.
Bombshell revolves around the sexual harassment allegations leveled at Ailes by a number of female Fox News employees, including Megyn Kelly (Theron) and Gretchen Carlson (Kidman). It’s pretty heavy duty subject matter, which makes it perfect Oscar bait.
But while it remains to be seen whether the film is, you know, actually any good since all we’ve got so far is the new trailer, Bombshell is already a frontrunner for the Best Make-up Oscar for what they did to transform Charlize into Megyn.
Here’s Charlize Theron as we all know her:
And here’s Charlize as Megyn in Bombshell:
Wow. Just wow.
With just a touch of make-up and some minor prosthetics, she looks like Megyn’s identical twin. If the Bombshell trailer didn’t reveal Charlize’s name in the credits, no one would’ve known it was her.
In less than a minute, Charlize managed to out-act both Nicole and Margot, and she didn’t even have to say a word. Seriously, just give her the Oscar now for her work in the trailer, which is actually unnervingly great.
I may joke but Charlize may actually get an Oscar for playing Megyn if history holds up. She previously won the 2003 Best Actress statuette by doing the whole make-up and prosthetics transformation in order to play real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
Hell, this also worked for Nicole Kidman when she won 2002 Best Actress statuette for wearing a prosthetic nose to play Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Maybe that’s why Margot Robbie missed out on the 2017 Oscar, she just didn’t play the prosthetics game well enough for her take on Tonya Harding.
The point is, the folks who hand out Oscar statuettes not only love it when actors play real people (to my chagrin), they froth over big physical transformations and/or incredible prosthetics work so 2019 could be Charlize’s year for Oscar glory.
Anyway, we’ll see how if we’ll get a bombshell of a performance from Charlize to back up the crazy good make-up when Bombshell drops on December 20.