Well here’s one of the coolest stories you’ll see all week. A number of fantastic actors have gotten together to recreate some of the greatest villains in movie history. Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Rooney Mara, Ryan Gosling, Gary Oldman, Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, and many more are all part of director Alex Prager’s “Touch of Evil” project. The video gallery features each performer uniquely taking on the persona of an iconic villain.

Some of the characters are deep cuts, with Pitt as Henry Spencer from Eraserhead, Clooney as Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty, Mara as Alex from A Clockwork Orange, and Oldman genuinely unrecognizable as the ventriloquist dummy from Magic. Other highlights include Viola Davis channeling Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Michael Shannon as Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko. It appears that the actors chose the characters themselves, which makes this all the more impressive. Hit the jump to check out the images.

Here are some images from the project courtesy of The New York Times. In order to check out the full video gallery (which is spectacular) click here. A key to some of the more obscure references can be found here.

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