In new movie The Beanie Bubble, Zach Galifianakis takes on perhaps the most unexpected character of his career – portraying the real-life creator of the 1990s (under)stuffed toy craze Beanie Babies, Ty Warner.

You know, the cute collectible animal soft toys we all had with a heart-shaped tag and were convinced were going to be worth a fortune some day? Yes, those ones.

During the film’s story, which charts the rise and fall of Warner and his company, Ty, as the Beanie Baby bubble dramatically burst, he interacts with three women who help him build his business from the ground up: co-founder Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), young tech whizz Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan) and partner Sheila (Sarah Snook).

It’s based on Zac Bissonnette’s 2015 book, The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, with fictionalised versions of real people inserted into the story.

Due to Warner’s reclusive and ‘controlling’ habits, as Galifianakis puts it, there wasn’t much around for him in terms of interviews and footage to use in his research for the character, so The Hangover star opted to craft ‘an essence of him’ instead.

However, Warner, 78, is known as someone who was obsessed with his appearance and went under the knife to maintain a youthful look.

Zach Galifianakis portrays Beanie Babies creator Ty Warner in The Beanie Bubble, a look at the rise and fall of the brand based on a book (Picture: Apple via AP)

Ty Warner during a rare appearance to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Beanie Babies at the American International Toy Fair in February 2003 (Picture: Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

During The Beanie Bubble, Galifianakis, 53, shows off the results of Warner’s facelifts on more than one occasion, which are dramatic and rather eerie.

The actor and producer admitted the make-up for this ‘affected’ his performance because he found it ‘distracting’ – however, he was full of praise for make-up artists Tarra Day and Scott Wheeler, who designed and achieved the look for him.

‘What they would do is they taped my skin and put anchors in it and then they would pull it up and then tie it off at the base of my neck. It made me look younger by about two months,’ Galifianakis told Metro.co.uk of the rather grim-sounding process in a chat ahead of the Sag-Aftra strike, laughing.

‘No, it really did have a huge effect. I am anti-plastic surgery but after seeing my face like that, I thought “Oh, I see why people do this!”’ he added.

Delving into the basic but very effective method, he continued: ‘Once you get used to it, you get used to it, but there’s this pulling back – and I have, I guess, pretty loose skin – so they would just pull it back, it was as crude as that!

The star joked that he was impressed by the results of his ‘facelifts’ in the movie (Picture: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

‘But they did a very artistic, great job at it. I mean, I could see the affects right when it was happening. So, it was a couple of hours in the make-up chair on the ‘tighter’ Ty days, but it wasn’t too bad.’

Discussing how he shaped his interpretation of the rather eccentric billionaire Warner, who still owns and operates Ty – alongside the Four Seasons Hotel in New York – he explained: ‘You would think I would be able to draw on Ty alone, however there’s not a lot of reported interviews with him – he only wanted to be interviewed by certain people. He was very controlling with that.

‘So, I had to kind of invent what I thought could be an essence of him and I really was just going for an essence of a person, and I wasn’t going for being a mimic, as I’m not really a mimic – and even if there were things to watch and mimic, I don’t know how much of that I could have done to copy him.

‘It’s more the essence of a person, especially a person in that ‘90s business world where women often took a backseat and greed and ego tend to take over a lot of [the time] – especially [with] men – and that, to me, is an unspoken-ness [sic] that we’re now starting to untap culturally.’

Zach went ‘for an essence’ of the enigmatic Warner in his performance, rather than mimicking him (Picture: Apple)

‘Those were the things I could draw on that were concrete and other than that, it was my imagination and the directors’ imagination,’ the Due Date star added.

As to why he decided to take on the role, which is somewhat of a departure from his usual broader comedy movies, Galifianakis was really interested in the time period.

‘In the ‘90s, things were really starting to rev up, capitalistically speaking, in the States,’ he chuckled.

He also knows it’s not necessarily what his audience expects of him.

‘For me, somebody that usually plays goofier characters, it was [also] different enough for me to try and see if I could pull it off, it was a different enough character that I haven’t played. Selfishly, I think that’s why I wanted to do it.

With co-star Sarah Snook. as his support at home, Sheila (Picture: Eros Hoagland/Apple via AP)

‘Also, I knew the directors [Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash], they’re friends. I read the book and I thought there was a real story here.

‘So, several elements come together before you decide whether or not you can do it or not – and by the way, I don’t even know if I did pull it off, it was a tricky character!’

The Beanie Bubble releases on Apple TV Plus and in cinemas on Friday, July 28.

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The star plays real-life Beanie Bay inventor, Ty Warner.