Actors Who Despised Their Superhero Costumes

Before Jennifer Lawrence achieved global fame by becoming the Mockingjay in The Hunger Games series, she played a young Mystique in 20th Century Fox's X-Men prequel X-Men: First Class, a role she reprised in X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. As one can imagine, becoming Mystique can take quite awhile in the dressing room, especially if the production team wants to utilize as many practical effects as possible. But that tends to have an adverse effect on the actress.

Leading up to the release of First Class, a behind-the-scenes featurette revealed that Lawrence had to undergo a seven-hour makeup process every time she needed to appear as Mystique. "I love working with Bryan, and I love these movies," she told Entertainment Weekly. "It's just the [body] paint." When she initially signed on as Mystique, she didn't care about "fumes and toxins. Now I'm almost 25, and I'm like, 'I can't even pronounce this, and that's going in my nose? I'm breathing that?'"

Luckily for her, that makeup process was cut down to approximately three hours for Days of Future Past, and then again for Apocalypse. For the sequels, she was able to wear a body suit instead of being fully covered in paint.

Andrew Garfield played the lead in Sony's Amazing Spider-Man films, giving us a different look at Peter Parker and his relationship with Gwen Stacy. What Garfield didn't want us to get a look at was his relationship with the Spider-Man superhero costume and how uncomfortable and unflattering it was. In an interview on The Ellen Degeneres Show, he talked about when he first started shooting the first movie in downtown L.A.; his Spider Sense must have been tingling, because he felt that pictures were being taken of him in the suit. "I knew there were paparazzi taking terrible unflattering shots of my, you know, everything," lamented Garfield, according to Digital Spy.

Black Widow might have had red in her ledger, but Scarlett Johansson had sweat in her boots. According to ABC News, Johannson told Nightline that during the first Avengers movie, "It was so hot, I would wring out my socks at the end of the day." That's a lovely picture.

That's gross, but also it's understandable considering the fact that her Black Widow costume was like a "wetsuit" and wasn't pleasant in the heat. In fact, it got so hot that she actually hallucinated for a bit while filming a fight scene. Johansson also compared her multiple costumes to tires, because her stunts would wear each one down until she needed to replace them.

While donning costumes can empower superheroes, it's another thing altogether to actually get into them. Olivia Munn, who played Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse, revealed on Conan that it took a bit of help to get her into the character's suit. To be more specific, it took the help of two women and a lot of lube. You'd think that having to do that every time you had to shoot a scene was embarrassing enough, but the first time she got on set with the veteran X-Men actors, she actually popped the crotch. Whoops...

Margot Robbie might absolutely (and quite literally) slay in her Harley Quinn hot pants in Suicide Squad, but she's definitely not a fan of them. While a lot of folks are making the character out to be an overtly sexual piece of eye candy, Robbie said that Quinn likes them "because they're sparkly and fun" and not because she wants guys ogling her. But while Harley's happy, Robbie herself wasn't, because of the way it made her hyper-aware of her appearance.

"As Margot, no, I don't like wearing that. I'm eating burgers at lunchtime, and then you go do a scene where you're hosed down and soaking wet in a white T-shirt, it's so clingy and you're self-conscious about it," Robbie told the New York Times. Turns out that she's worried about everyone looking at her in more than one way—understandable when you're rocking cotton candy pigtails, hot pants, and a mallet.

After being in development for well over a decade, Warner Bros.' Green Lantern movie finally premiered in 2011 to lackluster reviews and an underwhelming performance at the worldwide box office. Part of the movie's criticism fell on the studio's decision to feature an entirely CGI superhero costume for the character.

It's not that CGI costumes don't work—it's just that the studio did a poor job with the Green Lantern suit, and Ryan Reynolds, who played the titular superhero, didn't like it (and neither did the fans). In fact, Reynolds downright hates the movie as a whole. "I would give it a scant four, maybe. Three or four," Reynolds told Andy Cohen. He then decided even that was too generous. "It didn't work," he added. "A one, it's a one." Funnily enough, in Tim Miller's Deadpool movie, Reynolds, who plays Wade Wilson, makes fun of the suit, saying, "Please don't make the super suit green, or animated."

Christian Bale has starred in a plethora of movies, but his fans will always remember him for playing Batman in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. In fact, so far, he's the only actor to play the character in three films—a longevity that allowed him to wear multiple Batsuits. Unfortunately, he found the original very uncomfortable.

Luckily for Bale, before production started on The Dark Knight, he requested a new suit, and his new duds made a huge difference. "Literally stepping back into it was much more comfortable than the first time...more maneuverable. At first, I was fighting against the suit to do all of the fight sequences; this one was actually compatible with the Keysi fighting method. I could move my head." And although the new suit was heavier, it allowed for "so much more motion. I could breathe properly inside of it; it didn't squeeze my head like a vice throughout. So I had to act the rage and anger this time around."

When it came time for Ben Affleck to take up the mantle of Batman in the DC Extended Universe, Bale only had one piece of advice. "The only thing I said to him was to make sure to [be able to] take a piss without having anyone help him, because it's a little bit humiliating," Bale told Access Hollywood. "You have to have someone...help you out of the costume in order to be able to do that. So that was my main piece of advice for him."

It appears that only fans like to dress up as Batman, because not only did Ben Affleck and Christian Bale both dislike their Batsuits, but so did Val Kilmer—the actor Batman co-creator Bob Kane believes gave the best live-action performance as the Dark Knight.

During a panel at C2E2 2012, Kilmer told the audience wearing the Batsuit was "like wearing a wetsuit that was several times tighter than one anyone else would wear." Wearing a full-body suit will surely come with its fair share of issues, but the Batsuit, apparently, was much worse. "The suit takes an hour to get into, and you can't do it by yourself, and then you can't hear because there are really no earholes in it. Also you can't turn your head and you can't go to the bathroom by yourself. Plus, you fall over quite easily."

Kilmer reiterated his discontent in an interview with Conan O'Brien the following year, describing wearing the Batsuit as torture and saying it turned him into an old man. "You need help getting dressed ... it takes about 45 minutes to get undressed," Kilmer said. "You need help going to the bathroom," he continued, echoing an amusingly common complaint among ex-Batmen. "You can't hear anymore...And then when you call out for help, no one comes."

Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman, is one of the oldest and most prominent characters in comic book history, having debuted in the first issue of Batman's self-titled series in 1940. According to Batman co-creator Bob Kane, he and Bill Finger wanted to inject sex appeal into their then-forthcoming Batman comic series, which is why they decided to base Selina Kyle on '30s movie star Jean Harlow, and why the character tends to wear skintight black leather.

A number of actresses have portrayed Catwoman over the years, beginning with Julie Newmar in the '60s, and they've each worn head-to-toe black leather. In the mid-'00s, Halle Berry's version of the costume became the most revealing of the bunch. She didn't mind, though; in fact, she found it one of the best parts of filming the critically maligned movie. "[The suit was] the highlight of the whole movie experience. It was empowering. Besides the obvious sex appeal, it really takes a certain level of confidence to pull it off. We all have physical flaws, but you can't hide them when you're wearing it."

Anne Hathaway, who played Catwoman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, couldn't disagree more. "[The costume] was a psychological terrorist," Hathaway told Allure. "The suit, thoughts of my suit, changing my life so I would fit into that suit...It dominated my year. I went into the gym for ten months and didn't come out." That sentiment is something Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Catwoman in Tim Burton's Batman Returns, agrees with. "It was probably really unhealthy, and it would literally just start to squeeze my skin," Pfeiffer told E! Online. "I was only allowed to wear it for so many hours."

Regardless of your political opinions or religious beliefs, we can all agree that Batman & Robin was a pretty horrible movie. And it was also a little unpleasant for Arnold Schwarzenegger. True, he was earning $25 million to make some pretty awful puns, but the Governator had to deal with some intense makeup work to prepare for the part of Mr. Freeze.

A staggering 11 people spent four hours painting his face and suiting him up, but the real challenge came when it was time to make Schwarzenegger's mouth glow. In order to get that frosty look, makeup artist Jeff Dawn put an LED light in the actor's mouth. As you might assume, that made it difficult for Arnold to drop all those one-liners, but it was also kind of risky. Schwarzenegger's saliva would soak into the batteries, causing acid to leak inside his mouth.

Naturally, Schwarzenegger wasn't about happy about this, and the last thing you want is to make a seven-time Mr. Olympia winner angry, so Dawn put the LED device inside a balloon—and while that fixed the battery acid problem, the light would die every 20 minutes or so, which caused the cast and crew to take quite a few breaks. But despite the drawbacks, Schwarzenegger actually liked his costume a lot; according to producer Peter Macgregor-Scott, he took the outfit home, and pays Warner Bros. $1 a year to keep his super cool suit.

Widely considered one of the worst superhero movies, the 2003 Daredevil was a hellish experience for most moviegoers. And evidently, Ben Affleck—who's never had much luck playing masked vigilantes—had a devil of a time with his outfit. In one infamous interview, the actor described his disguise as "a source of humiliation." And after playing George Reeves—the Superman actor who reportedly despised his tights and cape—Affleck admitted he could relate to Reeves, saying, "You know, putting on the uncomfortable, cheesy suit—I understood that." Fortunately, the modern-day Matt Murdock, Charlie Cox, seems to enjoy his superhero costume a bit more, although he did describe his outfit as "pretty tight," saying it takes "four people and about 45 minutes" to get the thing on. And if that's hard for Charlie Cox, you've got to wonder how a blind guy puts it on so darn fast.

One of the most talented actors working today, Oscar Isaac had the misfortune of signing up for one of the worst movies of the X-Men franchise. Acting alongside Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence, Isaac donned a crazy costume to play Apocalypse, the mutant demigod with a thing for giving flowery speeches and turning people into dust. And it's too bad the film bombed with critics, because Isaac had to deal with a lot of perspiration in order to play the part.

As described by Rolling Stone, Isaac had to wear giant boots that added over three extra inches in height. His suit weighed 40 pounds, and then there was all that makeup and prosthetics. Producer Simon Kinberg confirmed that the suit was indeed a "nightmare contraption," and while Isaac was a trooper, he needed to take frequent breaks in a cooling tent. Every time director Bryan Singer yelled cut, the actor would head for the AC where he tried "to breathe and not freak out that sweat was pouring into my ears and I couldn't touch them. It was rough."

Granted, Mark Ruffalo doesn't wear an actual superhero costume when he's playing the Incredible Hulk. However, he is forced to wear a grey motion capture suit. Plus, his face is covered in a bunch of dots. As a result, audiences get to see the big green guy on the silver screen, but while CG Hulk looks awesome, Ruffalo sometimes feels pretty ridiculous.

On the set of The Avengers, Ruffalo told Slashfilm that he felt like "a trained actor reduced to the state of a Chinese checker board." He explained that it felt nasty wearing the suit in high temperatures and admitted it's not fun wearing such a tight outfit because he's "not well-endowed and those suits don't really show you off...." Plus, he felt a tiny bit inferior standing alongside the rest of the cast when they were all dressed in their full-Avengers regalia.

On the set of Age of Ultron, Ruffalo described the mo-cap outfits as "very unflattering," and Infinity War co-star Josh Brolin said that Ruffalo considers the suits "really embarrassing." But despite the drawbacks, Ruffalo does "have a blast" starring in the MCU, and all that humiliation really pays off when we finally get to see Ruffalo wrestle giant wolves and smash oversized space worms.

Long before Christopher Reeve donned the Superman suit on the big screen, George Reeves played the Man of Steel on TV—and he did so in probably the most uncomfortable Superman costume of them all. Reeves played the Kryptonian in the Adventures of Superman TV series in the '50s, which filmed in Culver City, CA, during the peak summer months.

As one can imagine, it gets quite hot in southern California, and wearing a full-body suit during the summer, especially one made of wool jersey, can be torturous. Although Reeves never publicly complained about it, many people, including historians, presume the suit would have been virtually unbearable to wear.

In 2015, the Smithsonian's Natural Museum of American History loaned Reeves' superhero costume to the Ohio History Center. At the time, the museum's Curator of Entertainment History, Dwight Blocker Bowers, discussed various aspects of the suit, saying, "It's wool jersey and was worn with a muscle suit made of cotton muslin underneath, which would have made it very hot under TV lights." Apparently, it got so hot underneath that suit that Reeves would lose up to ten pounds a day.