When an actress prepares (no eye contact,please)

Mara underwent a series of transformations and trials to play the part: she dyed and shredded her hair,pierced her nipple,shaved her eyebrows,learned how to ride a motorcycle,studied kickboxing,brushed up on computer hacking. But it was remembering where not to look,she said in a recent interview,that proved one of the biggest challenges. “It was really hard,” she said,“because listening is the most important part of acting,and a lot of people listen through eye contact. You always feel like you weren’t giving enough to the other person. It definitely took some time to get used to that.”

Along with the usual back-story research,dialogue coaching and layers of makeup,the actresses in this year’s crop of Oscar hopefuls sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to get,and stay,in character. Physical metamorphoses—often with more than a glimpse of bare flesh—are part of the job,of course. But the reservoirs of emotion the actresses plumbed surprised even them.

To deliver Margaret Thatcher’s speeches in The Iron Lady,Meryl Streep learned that her vocal stamina came from a place that even she,the grand dame of acting,had to work to locate. (It was somewhere below and behind her diaphragm.) “She had the capacity to go on and on and on and on,and on and on and on,and just a moment,I haven’t finished yet,” Streep said at the film’s premiere in New York last month,adding slyly: “She had a way of overriding interviewers that I’m going to emulate for the rest of my life.”

But deciding how much of a character to reveal on screen—how vulnerable and unfiltered to be — is one way all actors give depth to their work. The serendipity of on-set dynamics also helped propel Albert Nobbs,about a woman passing as a man in Victorian Dublin. Glenn Close plays Nobbs,in a film she had been trying to make for 15 years; Janet McTeer stars opposite her as Hubert,another woman in disguise. At six feet tall McTeer towered over Close,underscoring the divide between their characters.

“With Hubert what I wanted to create was everything that Albert wasn’t—confident,fulfilled,with a sense of humour,” said McTeer,who is a contender for best supporting actress Oscar nomination (with Close for best actress). “Hubert enjoys being a man. Hubert doesn’t do it in the way that Albert does it,which is to hide.” McTeer,of course,does hide,at least physically. “I put on boots that were much too big and flattened my chest,” which made her feel invulnerable,she said,as if she could punch somebody. Her hands,which she considered too feminine,stayed tucked in her pockets. “As a professional,as a performer,I really enjoyed the real challenge of changing virtually everything about myself,” she said. “I’ll miss Hubert.” MELENA RYZIK