Taylor Kitsch was made to look "awful" in John Carter.

The 31-year-old actor plays the titular military captain who is sent to Mars in the film and he has revealed his handsome appearance would be marked up on set most days.

"I don't pick my roles in any way, shape or form in the sense of that kind of stuff. If anything, we uglify a lot of that. Even in John Carter we tried, if you ask Bill Corso who did make-up. Every morning he made me look so awful. It's just honest to the character. There's little things you can do to show how messed up he is - if there's more cuts and bruises, to the bags under his eyes, to making him more pale in the flashback scene. Half the crew thought I was really sick because we did the make-up that way," he said when asked how it feels to be a sex symbol.

Despite mind-blowing special effects and a huge promotional campaign, John Carter - which is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series of novels - has been one of the biggest box office flops of all time with studio Walt Disney expecting to lose $200 million of the movie.