Stars Whose Bodies Had To Be Digitally Edited In Their Films

CGI and digital effects aren't just for explosions and sci-fi flicks. Filmmakers have all kinds of tricks – from makeup, to lighting, to costumes – for making actors look their best on screen. But sometimes they have to bring in some fancy backend digital editing to get the character to look just right on screen. The impressive technology movie studios use can hide everything from baby bellies to acne to facial hair if need be, and can even be utilized to enhance muscles, change actors' body types, and superimpose another person's face onto a stunt actor's body. Just what can't technology do these days?

While sometimes digital effects are rather obvious, many fly under the radar, even to movies' biggest fans and critics, and need to be pointed out. Here are some movie and TV stars whose bodies you maybe didn't know had to be digitally edited for the movie's final cut.

Gadot had to have digital edits in wide-shots, but for Dakota Johnson in Fifty Shades of Grey, it was a more intimate edit that needed to be made. The film definitely had its fair share of nude scenes, and the actors wore flesh-colored covers over their "special areas" during filming so they weren't actually naked. But it wasn't editing something out that created a challenge in editing, it was editing something in. More specifically, adding in pubic hair for Johnson's character. 

In an interview with The New York Times, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey revealed one of the challenges of post-production. "Dakota [Johnson] had kind of a patch that went over her [privates], and right round her whole body," McGarvey said. "We were in the curious situation, in post-production, of adding [hair down there]. I wouldn't say it was one of the highlights of my career, but it certainly was one of the most surreal scenarios."

Anyone who has seen the Marvel movie Captain America: The First Avenger is sure to remember how Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, began as a tiny, super scrawny young man. After a scientific experiment turns Rogers into the ultimate superhero, Captain America, Evans spends the rest of the film looking perfectly proportioned and, well, like a superhero!

However, in order to play the early version of his character, Evans would have had to lose a ton of weight. As Reuters noted, the early Steve was just 90 pounds! Instead of asking Evans to lose (then regain) weight for the role, or use a body double, the producers decided to use CGI. As Joe Johnston, the film's director, said, "Chris moves in such a unique way; he doesn't move like anybody else." This means that a body double simply wasn't convincing. The CGI technique involved "shrinking" Evans' real body by essentially removing sections of his body as seen on screen using computers. Apparently, the process was pretty difficult as it involved adding in background around the smaller Steve in each shot. We have to admit — their hard work definitely paid off!

When you're watching movies and TV, it can sometimes feel like all actors have effortlessly flawless complexions all the time. However, it turns out that they're only human just like us — and sometimes, they get the odd blemish. Luckily, CGI has progressed to the point where technology could magically touch up just about any skin problem. Claus Hansen reportedly helped create this technology at Method Studios, a professional retouching company. As he told Mashable, "Nobody looks like what you see on TV and in the movies — everybody is altered." Apparently, "beauty work" is done on just about everyone, but usually, it's done in secret.

According to Vulture, this technique was used quite frequently on the show Glee to remove any traces of normal teenage skin. One director explained, "There was a pimple pass on most episodes." 

Deborah Snyder, a movie producer, explained that this "beauty work" was designed to keep audiences engaged with what was going on. "Maybe that unsightly zit on their chin becomes a distraction, and the audience is looking at it instead of focusing on the intention of the scene." In some ways, it's pretty reassuring to learn that none of these Glee actors were as perfect as they seemed on TV!

Claire Danes and Morena Baccarin both starred in the CIA-focused show Homeland. Both actresses became pregnant while filming the show, and both times, their bellies were edited out. Apparently, getting pregnant and starting a family wasn't part of the game plan for either of their characters.

As Baccarin revealed to the Los Angeles Times in 2013, editing out a baby belly isn't really as hard as it sounds, "what with all the technology and everything."

Danes also opened up about what it was like playing a character who wasn't pregnant, while being heavily pregnant in real life. During a roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, Danes said, "I was pregnant for the second season of Homeland, and as my baby progressed, the show got more action-packed." She went on to describe a scene where her character got kidnapped. "I was chained to a pipe, it was 4 a.m., I was 7½ months pregnant, and I was like, 'This sucks,'" the actress recalled. But you wouldn't know all that based on what she looked like in the show!

In the 2007 film Ghost Rider, Nicolas Cage appeared in a topless scene with some very, very chiseled abs. According to Cage, who spoke to IndieLondon (via CBR) about the film, he spent "four or five hours a day on shooting days and then all day on the weekends" getting into shape for the scene. While his abs may have been real, the actor did admit that his huge arm tattoo was digitally removed for the film.

Plus, as CBR noted, comparing side-by-side photos of Cage on set and Cage in the finished product, there are a few differences. While Cage is definitely in incredible shape, his abs might not be quite as defined as they are in the film. It could be the case that the CGI team started work on Cage's arms and then decided to touch up his abs, too. Even The Daily Beast backed this theory. We'll probably never know exactly what happened in the editing room, but the tattoo removal on its own is definitely impressive.

The 1995 Kevin Costner film Waterworld was undeniably a bit of a disaster. During production, a set was destroyed by a storm and the script was rewritten. With all of the delays, it ended up costing $175 million to make, according to Forbes. A juicy rumor was started by Newsweek at the time that Costner had added to the costs by demanding a CGI makeover for his thinning hair. Costner naturally denied this, as Entertainment Weekly reported, saying, "We had a hard enough time getting the computer-generated things we need for the movie, let alone that."

One thing that was definitely added using CGI was a pair of gills for Costner. These also caused some uproar, as one movie exec apparently said, "The d***ed things look like little vaginas!" Apparently, the team managed to transfer the gills from an above-water scene to the underwater scene where they did look a little suspicious. It seems that back in the '90s, CGI wasn't quite as easy as it is today!

Game of Thrones was famous for its (what some called excessive) nude scenes. However, it turns out, one of the show's most infamous nude scenes was actually created using a little CGI magic. In the Season 5 finale of the show, one of the character's most lovable villains, Cersei Lannister, played by Lena Headey, is forced on a "walk of atonement" through the city entirely naked as a form of punishment.

As Express reported, many users noted on Twitter at the time that the body was definitely not Headey's. Some people guessed that Headey was noticeably pregnant at the time of the shoot, while others figured that the massive crowd of extras made her choose to use a body double. Either way, it's evident that Headey's head was CGI'd onto a body double for the scene.

And it certainly wasn't an easy job for the mysterious body double. As Headey's co-star Hannah Waddington said to Vulture, "Our fantastic body double was just so brave. I had a lot of respect for her."

The 2019 movie version of the Broadway musical Cats is pretty infamous. With almost universally bad reviews, the movie was a sound flop. One of the common complaints about the movie was the strange CGI that morphed many well-known actors into bizarre feline-human crossovers.

As Stylist noted, the movie that most of us saw was actually a second version. Apparently, the first cut was filled with errors that needed to be edited out using CGI. For instance, in some scenes, Judi Dench could be seen wearing her own wedding band — which is a little odd for a cat! In another scene, one of the extras could be seen wearing a hoodie — apparently, the editing team forgot to add CGI fur to him.

In addition to the CGI mistakes, the entire Cats movie is one big example of how CGI can only take us so far — maybe a human-cat mix is just a little too weird. After all, as The Sun noted, plenty of viewers were seriously creeped out by the strange cat CGI in this movie!