Brad Pitt and George Clooney For New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine released a sneak peek of their annual Hollywood issue, on newsstands Sunday, which features some of the film industry's biggest stars and the year's award season hopefuls. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, and Kirsten Dunst were among the 13 chosen to participate in the feature. Each actor transformed into character as a famous vamp, crook, or killer. Clooney, always the jokester, was given the role of a tyrant and said he carefully chose Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty "because [he] liked his hat."

Tree of Life costars Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain also made the elite list. Brad chose to portray himself as a madman and got into character by envisioning "Peter Lorre — with a dose of Kramer." Jessica's beauty was disguised behind a wall of fire and flames for her shoot while another famous face, Ryan Gosling, is barely recognizable. Gosling, who starred in three separate films this year, was given the impossible feat of playing the Invisible Man. Ryan joked, "I don’t really know if the Invisible Man is a villain or not, but I just don’t trust the guy. He says he’s going to be somewhere, but never shows up. Even when he does show up, he’s only ever kind of there. Yeah, that’s right, Invisible Man, I’m looking at you. In your face! That is your face, right?"

Check out all their intense character videos on NYTimes.com.