11 dramatic times celebrities went incognito as normal people

Aubrey Plaza joined the Pistol Shrimps basketball team ahead of starring in a documentary of the same name. However, after being denied a trade request to her sister’s team, she donned a wig and goggles to sneak onto her sibling’s roster and play undercover

Unfortunately, a torn ACL rather gave the ruse away as she was carried off the court in the middle of the match. 

Hustlers star Constance Wu prepared to play Destiny by going undercover at a real strip club, sporting fake neck tattoos and hair pieces.

The actress explained in 2020 on The Kelly Clarkson Show: “I gave lap dances to strangers. I’m not lying. I made $600 my first night.”

Kevin Bacon is a familiar and ever-friendly face on the red carpet but in preparing for his role in Footloose, he decided to go undercover as Ren McCormack, taking the lead character into a real high school setting. 

In 2017, he revealed that “It was exactly like the movie because some kids gave me a hard time, made fun of me, made fun of my hair, made fun of my clothing.” He also admitted in 2024 that he’d once requested a prosthetic disguise and walked around a mall in Los Angeles to experience a ‘normal’ day. 

Judd Nelson’s apathetic rebel made him a teenage heartthrob and timeless ’80s star. But the fame was well-deserved, considering Judd’s dedication in preparing for the role of a lifetime.

The actor reportedly posed as a student at a high school in Chicago, managing to convince some of the teens he was one of them by persuading them that his real ID was fake and buying them beer. 

Per a 2025 interview with British Vogue, Renée Zellweger prepared to become Helen Fielding’s beloved singleton by becoming ‘Bridget Cavendish’ and taking a role at a publishing house. 

Jonathan Cavendish, one of the film’s producers, was great friends with the editor of Picado, who provided her with a job collecting newspaper clippings and filing them under Helen Fielding, as the author was one of their clients. No one recognised the actress, with one of her colleagues unwittingly raving about a book which featured Renee on the cover!

Tom Holland took a step back into his school days in preparation for Spider-Man: Homecoming. Shadowing Arun Bishop, a senior at The Bronx High School of Science, in 2016, he went through the everyday life of a normal teenager.

Unfortunately for Tom, the teachers didn’t know he was attending for research purposes and he would get called to the front of class at what he calls “a school for genius kids”. The experience was “very embarrassing” according to the actor.

No prizes for guessing what everyday job Robert De Niro took on in preparation for his role in Taxi Driver. The actor earned a real taxicab driver’s license and worked on the New York roads for around a week.

According to Martin Scorsese, a young actor recognised Robert and said: “‘You just won an Oscar’. He said, ‘By God, is it that hard to get work?'”

The bread and butter of every hitman is the ability to move about unnoticed. Before Tom stepped into his role as Vincent in Collateral, the director challenged him to go undercover as a FedEx driver and deliver a parcel in Central Station… without being recognised.

The actor went one further, delivering the parcel, sitting down and having a coffee with a stranger. No one was any the wiser that the FedEx man among them was actually Tom Cruise.

Before he took on the leading role in thriller Good Time, Robert Pattinson studied up on his character Connie Nikas, a man who races through the underbelly of New York to free his brother.

The actor apparently visited Manhattan prisons, talking to corrections officers and befriending ex-convicts. He and co-star Benny Safdie also reportedly staged fights at a Dunkin’ Donuts and car wash.

Drew Barrymore starred as both actor Candy Black and her stand-in Paula in 2020 feature The Stand In. In preparation, Drew sported her prosthetic nose and teeth, heading to an open call casting.

Director Jamie Babbit told Entertainment Weekly in 2020: “She got into the building with my driver’s license, and she went in and interviewed. We wanted to see what the desperate life of a stand-in was like, someone who people don’t give a shit about and who just wants to fit in with the theater crowd but really isn’t welcome.”

Ayo Edebiri and co-star Jeremy Allen White headed into the kitchen in preparation for their roles on The Bear. After completing kitchen training, they both worked in restaurants for several months but it seems Ayo had a more realistic experience.

The actress told Deadline in 2022: “People recognised Jeremy, but nobody knew who I was at all, which was good for research. It was kind of annoying when I was like ‘Yeah, I stayed up late to clean until 12, and Jeremy was like ‘I got to go home!'”