What is the old cliché? When one door closes, another opens? The SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes may have shut the doors to film and TV studios, but it seems that other dream factories have been swamped with traffic: plastic surgeons’ offices. Now just to be clear: the vast majority of strikers—journeyman actors and workaday writers—are simply fighting for fair pay and protections in a rapidly changing business. But for some above-the-title talent, this work stoppage has become the perfect opportunity for a quick blepharoplasty so they can look more “rested” when cameras start rolling again.
Catherine Chang, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Los Angeles, says she’s seen a significant increase in Hollywood patients booking appointments for cosmetic surgery. The boom, says Dr. Chang, first began in May around the time of the start of the writers’ strike, which had writers as well as some producers calling her office to get work done. Once the SAG-AFTRA strike kicked off, a “really big influx” of actor patients began requesting appointments. “It’s been a little tricky, but we’re trying to get as many people in as possible,” says Dr. Chang. “We understand that usually actors and people in Hollywood don’t really get this opportunity to take time off and people are utilizing this time now to do personal things and personal interests of theirs.”
Those personal interests include a variety of facial procedures such as facelifts, upper and lower blepharoplasties (eyelid lifts), and brow lifts—the kinds of surgeries that require a more obvious recovery period, says Dr. Chang. (The downtime required for body surgeries is more discreet. Since you can cover them with clothing, they can really be done any time.)
Dr. Chang says that these surgery requests are not a “sudden, whimsical decision” for her patients, though. “I think they have been thinking about it for a while,” she says. “Suddenly, they’re given this opportunity of time so they’re going to take it.” And take it swiftly. Chang had one Hollywood patient this month go from facelift consultation to surgery in two weeks, “which is very fast,” she says. “But no one knows how long this will last so they want to act quickly.”
The last time the plastic surgery industry saw this much of an unexpected boom was during the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. People were spending more time on Zoom calls, staring at their own faces and finding things they wanted to tweak, but even more than that—they had the opportunity to just go “camera off” during a post-op healing period. Ben Talei, MD, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, says that the current demand in his office is very similar to during the pandemic lockdown, when the phone was ringing off the hook. “It’s just like we had for COVID, when we got a ton of calls, and people were waiting a week or two to see if there was going to be any kind of movement,” he says.
Now, Dr. Talei says that “a bunch of high-end people who are A-list, B-list” are trying to book their procedures, some even calling last-minute on Fridays and Saturdays when he’s normally off. “The actors started calling me as soon as the writers’ strike began because they knew something was coming down the line, so they just wanted to get their consults out of the way,” says Dr. Talei. “I had a couple actually put down deposits for surgery and had the date ready to go just in case it would happen.” Both Dr. Chang and Dr. Talei report a 30 percent increase in appointment requests since the strikes began.
When it comes to recovery time, an eye lift can heal in five or six days whereas facelifts take the longest. According to Jason Diamond, MD, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills who saw his biggest rush when the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike May 2, patients can usually recover from a facelift in two weeks. It can take four to six weeks for the surgery to be completely undetectable and for them to be camera-ready, though. “I’ve had many people who are like, ‘oh, no, no, I’ll be fine,’” he says. “I’ve never had anyone get called out, even when they’ve been back in two weeks, but I don’t recommend that.”
There are some things that can help speed up the process. Dr. Chang says her patients tend to recover much more quickly than usual because she is “very delicate with soft tissue handling.” And she doesn’t put them under general anesthesia (just sedation), even for facelifts, so they feel like themselves again faster.
Another trick requires Paris Hilton, or really, just her hyperbaric oxygen chamber. “I have like, five, six different patients who go to her house to use it,” says Dr. Talei. “The reason they go to Paris is because she has this big one that’s like a four-person chamber. It’s kind of more social and it’s not claustrophobic.”
Unless actors and writers get a fair contract, it’s hard to say there’s an upside to the Hollywood strikes. Still, in a medium once called the “silver screen,” there are silver linings for some.
_Original story from Allure_.**
Marie Lodi
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