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Rebel Wilson said, "I was very much stereotyped into playing the fat funny girl...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.'"
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."
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Then, in 2024, she told People, "I made the decision to change my hair color to dark, and that's how I started working. At the end of the day, it was hair. It was not like I was cutting my fingers off. It was like, 'I'm going to see if that works. I'm here, why not?' And it changed my life because I got hired to do Modern Family, which I did for 11 years."
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."
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She lost a significant amount of weight, and soon after, she booked her breakout role on Friends.
3. When Ariel Winter was only 7, she had to dye her hair black to reportedly increase how "marketable" she was as an actor.
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In 2016, she told People, "People criticize you at an extremely young age. There's a lot of rejection. I heard no thousands of times. That was hard to cope with."
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."
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She continued, "I think the perception of brunettes being more intellectual persists. Even though it makes no sense! I mean, Hillary Clinton is very, very blonde! And when I went from being blonde for a long time to brunette, I felt like I was invisible, because you'd walk into a room, and nobody immediately looks at you. When you're blonde, it's like you have a giant highlighter on your head; people can't help but stare. So, it definitely changes how people think of you."
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...'"
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She continued, "But when I was a kid, I was completely anti-rhinoplasty. I mean, it was like my religion. I loved that my parents [underwent rhinoplasty]. I understand it was the '50s. I understand they were assimilating. I understood that you had to change your name and you had to do certain things, and it was just normalized, right? You can't be gay. You can't be Jewish. You know, you can't look Jewish. You're just trying to fit into whatever is the group think."
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."
Jay Maidment/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
He said that he was told he was "too fat" for multiple roles he auditioned for.
For Zero Dark Thirty, Chris lost a significant amount of weight. A selfie he shared got Marvel's interest for Guardians of the Galaxy. But during the audition process, they told him he was "too fat for Star-Lord" and asked him to return to the physique in the selfie.
He said, "But getting fit has been the key to getting better roles and also just feeling better in general. Once I started getting better scripts and I started playing in big films, I just saw how important it was to stay in shape, go to the gym, eat healthily, and change my lifestyle"
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."
HBO / Via Max
"But I'm back to brunette because the blonde was killing my hair, and I needed to grow it out a little bit. I kind of feel like I'm myself again," she said
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."
(c) Sony Pictures Classics / courtesy Everett Collection
She continued, "It was great, I liked that. But in all seriousness, it's just hair color. It was really fascinating to see just one element of yourself change people's perception, and that became a very powerful tool for me, even in my acting...It really changed things up. People began to see me in a different way, for different roles. I don’t know if I can give credit to just the hair color, but maybe it did help people see me past blonde.”
She first dyed her hair dark red for Dr. Vegas in 2004. The following year, she landed her breakout role in Junebug.
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."
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"There are always some directors who are not like that, and they can imagine a comedic actress being a serious actress, but others need to see it first. The physical transformation helped with that, for me, but it's too early to tell still," she said.
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."
Bettmann / Bettmann Archive / Via Getty
She was reportedly nicknamed "the most cooperative girl in Hollywood" because of the way Eddie treated her in pursuit of making her famous.
Rita reportedly said, "I married him for love, but he married me for an investment. For five years he treated me as if I had no mind or soul of my own."
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.
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Needing time to recover, she rescheduled a screen test for two weeks later.
When she did the screen test, the director allegedly told her, "Honey, you should have cut your chin two years ago."
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