His celebrity transformations are bizarre and the process is captivating

From Madonna to Jack Nicholson, this performance artist attends Paris Fashion Week impersonating some of the world’s most famous celebrities. CNN got a glimpse behind the making of his latest look.

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. 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. “There are a lot of moving parts, from sculpting and mold-making to the hair team, who will get started on the wigs and eyebrows. Occasionally, I have contact lenses that are custom-made,” said Stone. The room where he primarily does his prosthetic development has a giant mirror and ring light, as well as shelves of paints, face molds, and other workshop tools — the sort of setup seen in the 2024 TV remake of “The Day of the Jackal.”