Anya Taylor-Joy is widely recognized and praised for her enviable long, blonde hair, but according to a recent interview with Vogue Australia, she would have shaved her head a long time ago if it were up to her.
The Vogue interview was conducted by Chris Hemsworth, her co-star in the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, Furiosa, set to hit theatres on Friday, May 24. In the film, Taylor-Joy plays Imperator Furiosa and, towards the end, she wears a bald cap—though she had apparently hoped to ditch her long hair for real.
Hemsworth asked: “You were ready to shave your head, but George [Miller, the film’s director] wouldn’t let you?”
“I was so f–king psyched,” she replied. “I have been wanting to do it forever, my whole life. Other people have an attachment to my hair and that’s like, ‘F–k you, I want it gone.’ I called up everyone on my team, called up Dior, called up Tiffany, and I was like, ‘Listen, I’m gonna be bald, and it’s gonna be great.’ And George saw me, and he just grabbed my hair and went, ‘Oh, it’s too beautiful. We can’t cut it.’”
This isn’t the first time the Taylor-Joy has opened up about wishing she buzzed her head for the role. In an interview with Empire Magazine this past March, she echoed a similar sentiment. “I was so excited to shave my head,” she told the outlet. “Then George saw me in real life, and went, ‘No, we can’t!’”
In another interview with Variety, the outlet reported that one of the reasons Miller wouldn’t let her shave her head was because they weren’t sure if they’d film the movie in order. “I said, ‘Please!’” she recalled. “But George is such a softie.”
She went on to explain that she wears two bald caps in the film: one that has hair that her character chops off to go bald, and the other, a “prosthetic bald cap molded to her scalp,” as explained by Variety.
Despite not getting her way, Taylor-Joy hasn’t let that stop her from channeling a bald Furiosa. For the film’s Australian premiere earlier this month, she and her stylist, Ryan Hastings, alongside her hairstylist, Gregory Russell, got creative. In an Instagram post, Russell shared photos of his client on the red carpet in a head-turning Rabanne headpiece that made her look like her hair was buzzed. Underneath, he styled her hair in a “sleek flat knot,” according to details from the photo’s caption.
