Plenty of actors agree to dye their hair or alter their appearances in other ways (like with prosthetics) for a role they’ve already booked. However, some actors are pressured into changing the way to change how they get typecast.
Here are 11 actors who had to dye their hair or change their appearances to actually get roles they wanted:
1.
In 2013, Sofía Vergara told Parade, “I’m a natural blonde, like my siblings. When I started auditioning for American acting roles, they didn’t know where to put me. A blonde Latina? In LA, they’re used to Latin women looking more Mexican. But if you go to Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, everybody is blonde.”
2.
In 1996, Jennifer Aniston told Rolling Stone, “[Before an audition where I had to wear a leotard] my agent said, ‘Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’ My agent gave it to me straight. Nicest thing he ever did…The disgusting thing of Hollywood — I wasn’t getting lots of jobs ’cause I was too heavy.”
3.
When Ariel Winter was only 7, she had to dye her hair black to reportedly increase how “marketable” she was as an actor.
4.
In 2013, Olivia Wilde told Into the Gloss, “I spent the first couple years of my career as a very blonde blonde. And then I went brunette for a role, and suddenly all my offers changed — the types of roles people approached me with totally changed. When I was really blonde, it was always like, ‘the really pretty girl’ or ‘the sexy hot chick.’ At that point in my career, it was all lame pilots — those were the types of roles I was going for. And then, when I was on The O.C., it was like, ‘She’s punky!’ I had a purple streak in my hair, and I was the ‘punky girl.’ And then when I went brunette, the roles went to more, ‘She’s a waitress with a heart of gold and a tough life,’ or ‘She’s a doctor.’ And I always wondered — would I have been offered those roles had I still been blonde? I don’t think so.”
5.
After her breakout role in Dirty Dancing, Jennifer Grey had her first of two rhinoplasties at her mother’s suggestion. In 2022, she told People, “She loves me, loved me, always has, and she was pragmatic because she was saying, ‘Guess what? It’s too hard to cast you. Make it easier for them.’ And then I did, and she was right. it wasn’t like, ‘You’re not pretty.’ It’s like, ‘Guess what? If you don’t want to be an actor, okay. But if you wanna be an actor…'”
6.
In 2016, Chris Pratt told Best Fit Magazine, “I had gotten used to the idea of making a living as an actor by playing the fat friend who makes you laugh. That works for some roles, but you begin to realize how many parts you will never be able to get because you’re out of shape. But at some point, I saw that if I wanted to have a serious career and play serious characters, I needed to get into shape and look after my body.”
7.
In 2023, Sydney Sweeney told Yahoo, “I’m naturally a brunette — almost all of my life, I was a brunette. I highlighted my hair for Everything Sucks, but I really went blonde for Euphoria. There was this complex where no one really knew me as brunette Syd, and I didn’t really book as much as I did when I was blonde.”
8.
In 2016, Amy Adams told People, “Based on roles that I was getting, called in for, people were responding to certain types of characters with me as a blonde and the minute I went red, it was quirky and fun instead of flirtatious and dumb.”
9.
In 2022, Rebel Wilson, who initially dreamed of being a dramatic actor rather than a comedic one, told The Hollywood Reporter, “I was very much stereotyped into playing the fat funny girl, which I loved and which I played into and made millions of dollars doing. To me, that was not a negative whatsoever, but sometimes, when you transform yourself physically, it can make people look at you in a slightly different way. There can be benefits to that and people look at you and say, ‘Oh, she’s different now, maybe we should cast her in different projects.’ Unfortunately, in Hollywood, people need to see you differently in order to cast you differently or give you new opportunities.”
10.
Not only was Old Hollywood star Rita Hayworth pressured into using a stage name to hide her Spanish heritage (her real name was Margarita Carmen Cansino), but, at the behest of her first husband, Eddie Judson, she also had to endure electrolysis treatments to change her hairline and dye her dark hair ginger to make her appear less “Latin.”
11.
And finally, around 1949-1950, Marilyn Monroe, who was early in her acting career, reportedly overheard someone at a party call her a “chinless wonder.” So, she consulted a cosmetic surgeon and got a cartilage graft.
Can you think of any actors who were pressured to change their appearances to “make it” in Hollywood, but refused? Let us know in the comments!