For a long time, when a Hollywood movie needed a convincing tough-guy actor, Sam Elliott's agent was the person who got the phone call. It says a lot about Elliott's talent as an actor that those phone calls still came in even when he was looking like this.
If we had to describe this 1987 style, we'd call it 'Mad Professor.' Elliott is almost unrecognizable, and it's hard to reconcile this look with what we saw from him on the big screen recently in 'A Star Is Born.'