Dour Actresses Cover Up in Pursuit of Oscars

Call it the "take me seriously" syndrome.

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Amy Adams and Kate Winslet covered up their good looks to emerge as Oscar contenders.

(ABC)

Almost every year, during the lead-up to the Academy Awards, a film comes out starring one of Hollywood's hottest, most sought-after actresses. But instead of strutting around onscreen in a ball gown, bikini or with a face full of feature-enhancing makeup, she's sullen. She's dour. Sometimes, she's flat-out ugly.

Why? She's probably trying to win an Oscar.

It's no secret that the movie industry insiders casting ballots for Hollywood's most coveted trophies salivate when actresses decimate their looks in the name of their craft. What better way to demonstrate commitment to a role than to chop off a head full of commercially endorsed hair and pack 20 pounds onto a to-die-for frame?

Below, see which actresses are hoping to score an award by smothering their looks this year, and check out who worked the technique to victory in the past.

Anne Hathaway, 'Rachel Getting Married'

Related

Do Oscar Nominee Themes Reflect Reality?

Top 10 Surefire Ways to Win an Oscar

WATCH: Ralph Fiennes Digs Into 'The Reader'

For an actress who shot to fame as the ugly duckling turned budding beauty in 2001's "The Princess Diaries," it seems fitting that to enter into the realm of the acting elite, she would have to tuck away her signature grin and airy charm. Indeed, in "Rachel Getting Married" a limp-haired, sullen Hathaway hardly recalls the protagonists she played in "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Becoming Jane." As Kym, the dark, drug-addicted sister of bride-to-be Rachel, Hathaway twists her smile into a maniacal smirk, sleeping with the best man, spilling out painful family secrets during a speech at the rehearsal dinner and throwing punches with her mother. Critics praised Hathaway's turn; as she's up for the Best Actress award Sunday, Oscar voters may bow to her as well.

Meryl Streep, 'Doubt'

To be fair: Streep has been nominated for more Oscars (15) than any other actress. To say she must do much more at this point than show up onscreen to garner a nomination might be stretching it. So of the two films she starred in in 2008 -- "Mamma Mia!" and "Doubt" -- it's no surprise Academy Award voters decided to nominate her for her performance in the latter, in which she's clad in a nun's habit for the entire length of the film, than for the ABBA-inspired movie-musical, in which her blond locks flow and her behind shakes. As Sister Aloysius, the principal of an austere Catholic school out to oust a shady resident priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) from the community, Streep is the antithesis of sexy -- though she told ABC News she found the costume "liberating." Her somber portrayal could earn Streep her third Oscar Sunday.