By Kati Chitrakorn, CNN
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Alexis Stone transformed
into Morticia Addams |
CNN: During the Fall-Winter 2025 haute couture shows in Paris, Morticia Addams — the eerie and elegant matriarch from “The Addams Family” movie franchise — can be seen slinking around the cobblestoned streets of the French capital. Tall, ghostly pale, and with long jet-black hair cascading down her back, this Addams could pass, at a quick glance, for the actor Anjelica Huston, who played Addams in the 1990s films.Underneath the flowing tresses, though, is a muscular 31-year-old man: Alexis Stone, a performance and makeup artist known to 1.3 million Instagram followers and hundreds of thousands more on TikTok.
While multiple TikTok creators today adeptly use makeup to drastically alter their facial features to resemble particular celebrities, Stone’s work goes beyond full-face treatments into whole-body transformations, presented live and in public. Using prosthetics, special effects makeup and bespoke enhancements (such as custom scents), the result is often on par with the kind of execution one might see on the big screen.
“I think people have an idea that we go to a Halloween shop and buy these things over the counter, but everything is handmade and takes decades of experience to put together,” said Stone. In June, he gave CNN a tour of his apartment in Glasgow, Scotland. Here, in his home, is where the prototypes and final looks are developed.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever fully understand why people take such interest in what I do,” Stone mused. “Perhaps it’s because, as humans, we have days where we want to feel more visible, and other days where we want to feel invisible or unrecognizable. I think that’s something we can all relate to, to some degree.”
Impersonating Huston as Addams was an eight-week process that required intensive research, said Stone. “We wanted to reference as close to the original Addams as possible, from the original wig to her iconic black, torn sequin gown (both sourced from the film’s costume department),” explained Stone. On a long wooden table are Polaroids, taken by hair stylist and wig designer Paul Huntley in the ’90s, of Huston and her late costar Raul Julia, who played the role of husband Gomez Addams. “All the pictures are originals so please be careful with them,” reads an accompanying message.
A form of escapism
Stone, whose legal name is Elliot Joseph Rentz, attends Paris Fashion Week twice a year under the guise of a celebrity, a famous character or a celebrity playing a famous character. Those personalities have included Jack Nicholson, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Adele, Jennifer Coolidge, and Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil from the 1996 film remake “101 Dalmatians”.
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| Stone, in his convincing transformation as Priestley, attending the Paris Haute Couture shows in June 2024. Claudio Lavenia/Getty Images |
