15 Actors Whose Real Height Turned Out to Be Different Than What Was Portrayed in Their Movies

Actors are often required to physically transform in order to portray certain characters. However, one thing they can’t actually change themselves is their height. So, filmmakers come up with different tricks to make them either look taller or shorter on-screen. They work out so well, viewers end up completely believing what they’re seeing. But we found out a few times when we were tricked by the magic of cinema.

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth are another on-screen couple who have a significant height difference. To make sure the actors, who are 5’3’’and 6’3’’ tall respectively, looked well together, they built a path that was one foot off the ground on which Portman had to walk during their scenes together.

Gillian Anderson

David Duchovny is 5’11¾". It’s not surprising that in order to get a good shot, Gillian Anderson needed to look higher than she was (5’3″). She remembers that when the characters needed to enter a room and show their badges at the same time, she had to jump onto something high to look taller. One time, she turned to the camera quickly and fell down because she had forgotten she was on a box.

Josh Hutcherson

Good camera work managed to hide the height difference of the main stars of The Hunger Games. In real life, Josh Hutcherson is 5’5″ and Jennifer Lawrence is 5’9″. The actor is okay with his height and often jokes about it.

Kristen Stewart

Bella Swan and Edward Cullen from the film series The Twilight Saga have become an iconic couple. They look so nice together: he is tall and she is slightly shorter. But in reality, the height gap between the 2 actors is much bigger. Kristen is 5’5″ tall, while Robert is 6’1″ tall.

Daniel Radcliffe

This is another time when camera work helped hide a significant height difference. In real life, Daniel Radcliffe is shorter than Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. But according to the star of Harry Potter, it’s not a problem for his career. He said that Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman are very successful actors that are not very tall.

He jokes, “I could play a soldier. The minimum height for a marine is 5 feet, and I’m well above that. I wouldn’t be able to take myself seriously as the quarterback in a football movie, which is my one legitimate gripe.”

Woody Harrelson

We don’t know what tricks the makers of the series True Detective used, but they managed to level the main characters’ height difference because Matthew McConaughey is 5’11^3/4’’ inches tall, and Woody Harrelson is 5’9’’ inches tall.

Robert Downey Jr.

If you knew the real heights of the Iron Man cast, some shots might look confusing. Tony Stark is much taller than his assistant, but Robert Downey Jr. is 5’8½" and Gwyneth Paltrow is 5’9″. Besides, she almost always wears high heels in the film.

So, the movie creators needed to try really hard to make Robert Downey Jr. look taller. He wore shoes on heels, and there’s also information that suggests Guy Ritchie used the same trick on the set of Sherlock Holmes.

Ingrid Bergman

If you watch Casablanca carefully, you may notice that the height difference between Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart is never consistent. The thing is, the director wanted to hide the fact that Bergman was taller than Bogart. To create the illusion of the opposite, the director made Bogart sit on boxes and pillows, and in some scenes, Bergman even had to slouch.

Vin Diesel

Tabloids have written about a possible argument that happened between Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson. After the argument, they didn’t want to work together and they still needed to do some scenes together. The solution was that they were filmed separately and then were put together through editing.

Some scenes in Fast & Furious look very strange. Diesel seems like a giant next to Johnson and it’s possibly a bad attempt at trying to make Vin look taller than he is.

Scarlett Johansson

In the Marvel Universe, many characters had to change a lot in terms of their appearances. For example, Captain America was shown shorter and thinner before his transformation. And Scarlett Johansson needed to look taller to look good with Evans. Her height is 5’3″ and Evans’ height is 6′.

Tom Hardy

To portray Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, Tom Hardy needed to visit the gym a lot and learn to speak through a special box to make his voice scarier. Additionally, the actor needed to increase his height to look good next to Christian Bale. He had to wear shoes on a very high platform.

Tom Hardy is 5’9″, and Bale is 6′.

James McAvoy

In real life, Anne Hathaway (5’8’’) and James McAvoy (5’9’’) are almost equally tall. But the creators of the romantic drama Becoming Jane made it look like McAvoy was significantly taller than her.

Miley Cyrus

In The Last Song, Miley Cyrus seems shorter than Liam Hemsworth, but only a little. The camera hides a big height difference. Cyrus is 5’5″, and Hemsworth is 6’3½".

Amanda Seyfried

Another duo with a big age difference is Amanda Seyfried (5’3″) and Justin Timberlake (6′ 1½"). During the entire time on the set of In Tie, the actress had to wear heels, even in fight scenes. In one of the interviews, she even revealed how she could run fast in such shoes. It turned out that the shoes are special with shorter heels.

Reese Witherspoon

When tabloids write about celebrities that are short, they almost never forget to mention Reese Witherspoon. Her height is just 5’1¾". When she was working on Water for Elephants, Robert Pattinson was her colleague. The camera work in the film was incredible: in real life, the actors have an impressive height difference, as Pattinson is 6’1″.

Have you ever had any difficulties because of your height? If yes, what were they?