Cate Blanchett's latest performance is as an ugly and endangered Australian Mary River turtle that sports a bright green mohawk hairdo and breathes through its genitals.
Her co-star is another Aussie A-Lister, Joel Edgerton, who plays an equally ugly ghost shark that is an animal kingdom oddity because its penis is on its forehead.
Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson, dressed in a costume that looks like it has been created by a bunch of kindergarten kids, is the star of the low budget production despite portraying an ugly singing, dancing, phytoplankton-sipping Australian ethmia clytodoxa moth.
"We put our egos aside," Dawson told AAP.
"We are really willing to do anything to get that attention because we need it."
The impressive cast, which also includes Teresa Palmer as a southern right whale, Samara Weaving as a ghost bat and Dan Wyllie as giant Gippsland earthworm, is part of new campaign by The Wilderness Society.
They star in a four-minute musical comedy video featuring puppet creatures, whacky and naughty lyrics and use of dollops of whale poo.
Dubbed "Save Ugly", the campaign is aimed at raising awareness of all the aesthetically-challenged creatures in Australia's ecosystems "that help make life possible, warts and all".
Cute, furry animals often get the most help and support.
The Wilderness Society hopes the music video will shine a light on the endangered Mary River turtle and other creatures that need help to survive.
The video was shot in just one day in Los Angeles.
"We need these different creatures," Dawson said.
"It is important to know the phytoplankton feeds off the excrement of whales.
"These tiny little things that we can't see with the naked eye capture more carbon than trees do."
Dawson joked Blanchett, a seven-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner, might even score another nod for voicing the turtle.
"I will be rooting for Cate Blanchett's turtle to accept on all of our behalf," Dawson said.
The video can be viewed at ugly.wilderness.org.au
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