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Thanks to mimicry, magic or masterful acting, winning an Academy Award for playing a real-life person is nothing new. George Arliss did it for portraying Benjamin Disraeli and Paul Muni for his turn as Louis Pasteur in Oscar's earliest years.

In the next eight decades, the list would grow with actors embodying well-known subjects (Paul Gauguin in "Lust for Life," Mahatma Gandhi in "Gandhi" and Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood") and not-so-well known or instantly recognizable (Sister Helen Prejean in "Dead Man Walking," John Bayley in "Iris" and Alicia Nash in "A Beautiful Mind").

Sometimes the role demands tremendous weight loss or gain. Sometimes it's all about the look or voice or toothy smile or disability or ephemeral ability to disappear into a stranger.

In each of the past eight Oscar contests, one or two of the four acting statuettes have gone to performers playing an actual person. Go back a dozen years and, except for 1997 releases, that pattern also holds.

Last year, Philip Seymour Hoffman's work as Truman Capote trumped two other terrific turns: David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow and Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash.

Unless she does or says something outrageous in the next month, Helen Mirren likely will be crowned best actress of 2006 for channeling Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen." Forest Whitaker, as Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland," could join her on Feb. 25 when the Academy Awards are handed out in Hollywood.

With the nominations just days away -- they will be announced at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday -- we revisit just some of the actors who met the challenge of tackling a true-life person.

Who they are and how they did it
Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Movie: "Capote," 2005.
Role model: Truman Capote.
Defining characteristics: Voice and diminutive size.
How he did it: Hoffman shaved his mustache and beard, lost an estimated 40 pounds, adopted a high-pitched voice, donned 1950s and '60s clothing and eyeglasses, and channeled Capote's torment.
Last word: Hoffman was brilliant, but Toby Jones would prove an even more perfect physical match in "Infamous," which came out a year later.

Actress: Reese Witherspoon.
Movie: "Walk the Line," 2005.
Role model: June Carter Cash.
Defining characteristics: Perky but sincere public persona, dark hair and distinctive singing voice.
How she did it: Witherspoon dyed her blond hair and took singing and autoharp lessons and brought some of her natural Southern sass to the role.
Last word: Not to take anything away from Witherspoon's vibrant performance, but moviegoers more clearly remembered Johnny Cash's look and sound than that of his songbird soulmate.

Actor: Jamie Foxx.
Movie: "Ray," 2004.
Role model: Ray Charles.
Defining characteristics: Charles' singing and piano playing, along with his way of speaking, walking, tilting his head and concealing his sightless eyes behind dark glasses.
How he did it: Foxx didn't do his own singing, but he played the piano and had his eyes glued shut 14 hours a day. He talked and moved like Charles to astonishing effect.
Last word: Spot-on. As good as it gets.

Actress: Cate Blanchett.
Movie: "The Aviator," 2004.
Role model: Katharine Hepburn.
Defining characteristics: Purposeful way of walking and talking, and freckled complexion.
How she did it: Established herself in her first scene, as writer John Logan told the PG. "She talks a mile a minute and the synapses are jumping and the teeth are snapping, to prove to the audience, OK, there's Katharine Hepburn." She kept up the pose as the long-legged, fast-talking, patrician New Englander, with help from hair, makeup and costuming.
Last word: Hepburn was a film actress for seven decades, so audiences had a firm notion of the illusion Blanchett needed to create, and she did not disappoint.

Actress: Charlize Theron.
Movie: "Monster," 2003.
Role model: Aileen Wuornos.
Defining characteristic: This highway prostitute, executed for murdering six men, was as physically different from Theron as could be.
How she did it: Theron wore contact lenses, false teeth, gained 30 pounds, turned her skin mottled and freckled, weighed down her eyelids with gelatin so she would look tired and replaced her graceful posture with one more threatening. To get inside Wuornos' head, she read thousands of her letters.
Last word: Documentary footage proves Theron turned into a physical doppelganrer for the "damsel of death."

Actress: Nicole Kidman.
Movie: "The Hours," 2002.
Role model: Virginia Woolf.
Defining characteristic: The nose, of course.
How she did it: Kidman donned a brown wig, fake proboscis, shapeless frocks and, even more difficult, an invisible shroud of depression.
Last word: Kidman might not have been the obvious choice, but she was the only one, in the end, dousing her inner radiance to pull off this part.

Actor: Adrien Brody.
Movie: "The Pianist," 2002.
Role model: Wladyslaw Szpilman.
Defining characteristic: His piano prowess.
How he did it: Brody studied photos of Szpilman and read his memoirs, lost 30 pounds, worked with four piano teachers and learned to play Chopin from memory, mastered a Polish dialect and spent six weeks acting alone on the set.
Last word: He faced one of the most difficult physical transformations, but in the end, one of Szpilman's sons said Brody very much resembled his father as a young man.

Actress: Julia Roberts.
Movie: "Erin Brockovich," 2000.
Role model: Erin Brockovich.
Defining characteristics: Big hair, low-cut blouses, short skirts and determination to spare.
How she did it: Roberts emphasized her character's cleavage, confidence and toughness as a penniless divorced mother turned crusader.
Last word: She wasn't an absolute ringer for Brockovich, but years before multimillionaire Roberts became a wife or mother herself, she made a convincing woman with two ex-husbands, three kids and no money.

Actress: Hilary Swank.
Movie: "Boys Don't Cry," 1999.
Role model: Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena.
Defining characteristics: A woman who dressed and acted enough like a man to be accepted as one.
How she did it: Swank cut her hair, sculpted a lean, muscular body, deepened her voice and made the most of wardrobe, body language and mannish mannerisms (holding a cigarette a certain way and expelling the smoke through the nose). She even took her act to the street, to gauge strangers' reactions to her as a man.
Last word: At 5 feet, 7 inches, Swank was even taller than Brandon, further en-hancing the impression that she was a he.

Actress: Judi Dench.
Movie: "Shakespeare in Love," 1998.
Role model: Queen Elizabeth I.
Defining characteristics: Red hair, high forehead, ornate garments documented in official portraits.
How she did it: A wig, widow's peak of jewels dangling from her forehead and heavy, elaborate gowns which recalled the famous images. Dench also wore shoes with 5-inch soles so she could look co-star Gwyneth Paltrow in the eye.
Last word: Dench was on screen for only eight minutes, but it was enough to leave fellow nominees Kathy Bates, Brenda Blethyn, Rachel Griffiths and Lynn Redgrave in their seats on Oscar night.

Actor: Geoffrey Rush.
Movie: "Shine," 1996.
Role model: David Helfgott.
Defining characteristics: Kinetic tics, exaggerated mannerisms and, of course, skill as a classical pianist.
How he did it: Rush, one of three actors playing the Aussie prodigy at various ages, perfected Helfgott's many physical quirks and erratic behavior and took advantage of the soundtrack, which featured Helfgott at the keyboard most of the time.
Last word: The real Helfgott appeared at the Academy Awards, talking to himself as he performed before the Best Actor winner was announced. When Rush's name was called, audience members could see he deserved the gold.

Actor: Jeremy Irons.
Movie: "Reversal of Fortune," 1990.
Role model: Claus von Bulow.
Defining characteristics: Dapper attire, European accent, haughtiness and acknowledgment he is a very strange man (the famous "You have no idea" rejoinder).
How he did it: Irons copied how the socialite dressed and carried himself, cradled his cigarette and cultivated an icy air of superiority.
Last word: A California newsman, who covered the first attempted murder trial, wrote that Irons found the essence of von Bulow. "He is all bright surface and no depth -- or at least no depth he wishes to share. He is curt in demeanor and deftly ironic in conversation. He is a man who fascinates, but ultimately repels."

Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis.
Movie: "My Left Foot," 1989.
Role model: Christy Brown.
Defining characteristics: Born with severe cerebral palsy, the Irishman learned to write and paint with the toes of his left foot.
How he did it: Day-Lewis spent months in Dublin studying the effects of cerebral palsy and talking with relatives and others about Brown. The 6-foot, 2-inch actor stayed in character during filming, which meant he remained in an uncomfortable wheelchair between takes, feigned a speech impediment that made him difficult to understand, and allowed others to help him eat.
Last word: Tom Cruise looked like a shoo-in for his role as paralyzed veteran Ron Kovic in "Born on the Fourth of July" but Day-Lewis emerged from the pack and not only won, but carried Brenda Fricker (as his mother) to the winner's circle, too.

Actor: Robert De Niro.
Movie: "Raging Bull," 1980.
Role model: Jake LaMotta.
Defining characteristics: The boxing champ's ability to throw and take a punch and, notably, the weight in later years.
How he did it: De Niro trained with LaMotta and gained 56 pounds while production shut down for four months.
Last word: Buried under blubber, De Niro became what every actor craves: unrecognizable.

Actress: Sissy Spacek.
Movie: "Coal Miner's Daughter," 1980.
Role model: Loretta Lynn.
Defining characteristics: Long dark tresses, a signature sound and a rags-to-riches tale that goes from a Kentucky shack and marriage at 14 (with four babies by 21) to being crowned country music queen.
How she did it: Spacek, who once said she and Lynn both stood 5 feet, 2 1/2 inches tall, dyed her red hair and did her own singing.
Last word: Lynn picked Spacek's photo out of a stack to play her, and it turns out she knew best.