15 Movie Characters That Were Based On A Living Person

Take a look at some of your favorite A-Listers who took inspiration from living people and imbibed their traits in movie/TV characters:

1. Every role that Liev Schreiber has played was partly based on his maternal grandfather. His grandfather, Alex Milgram, was a calm person who influenced him so much that he partly modeled all his roles after him.

2. Jared Leto’s modeled his Blade Runner 2049 on one of his teachers. His teacher was a blind man who taught Jared how to act like a blind man. His eyes in the movie are directly modeled on his teacher’s real eyes.

3. One of the Muppets was inspired directly by Michael Cera. Walter and his puppeteer said, “They told me to think about Michael Cera – that if he was a puppeteer he would already have the job.”

4. One of the characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender was inspired by Dwayne Johnson. The makers even tried to get The Rock to voice The Boulder but that didn’t work out, unfortunately.

5. Lady Gaga’s role in American Horror Story: Hotel was modeled on a murderer. She watched Robert Durst in The Jinx every day to study his practical nature in which he was devious and evil.”

6. Melissa McCarthy modeled her Bridesmaids character on Guy Fieri. She even asked the higher-ups if she could wear spiky hair like Fieri’s but the makers told her “You can’t actually be Guy Fieri.”

7. Matthew McConaughey’s Serenity character was based on a real guy, He went on a boat tour with this tuna captain who was super friendly, until a fish bit – then, nothing existed for him in the world except that fish.

8. All the Ninja Turtles in the 2014 TMNT movie were modeled on movie stars. Leo was inspired by Russell Crowe (and Nelson Mandela), Donatello after Leonard Nimoy, Mikey after Bill Murray, and Raphael after Clint Eastwood.

9. The inspiration for James Caan’s character in The Godfather came from Don Rickles. Caan mentioned that he was thinking about his friend Don Rickles and then he started laughing like him.

10. The personality of Tyler Perry’s Madea is basically a mix of two people: his aunt and his mom. Perry explained, “My mother is the wisdom of Madea, but my aunt Mayola, that’s her wig, that’s her voice, that’s her gun in the purse.”

11. Robert Pattinson took inspiration for his Good Time character from a guy who lived in a hole in Queens. The hole was next to a family house, and this guy would often sneak into the daughter’s bedroom.

12. The character of Korg from Thor: Ragnarok is based on Polynesian bouncers that Director Taika Waititi came across in New Zealand. He told those nightclub bouncers were big and burly but had super-soft voices.

13. Paul Lieberstein’s The Office character was based on one of his friends. His friend had gathered enough money to live in Hawaii without working and just surf all day.

14. Judge Gen in The Good Place was modeled on Ruth Bader. Even her robe was based on the one that Bader wore. Maya Rudolph said it was an homage to an iconic human being.

15. Dwayne Johnson’s Moana character was based on one of his family members. Jonhson explained in a tweet that his character Maui was partly inspired by his late grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia of Samoa.