Sarah Pidgeon, Cameron Diaz, and Julia Roberts’s History of Hair Acting
Hair acting may be one of Hollywood’s most overlooked performance skills, but the best actors know that a single twirl or toss can reveal as much as an entire page of dialogue. In January, during a Q&A at a special New York screening of his 1987 film Wall Street, Michael Douglas revealed that a good friend of his often gave him a hard time about his habit of leaning on hair to find a character. “Jack Nicholson always used to give me shit about hair acting. [He’d say], ‘What’s with his hair acting?’” Douglas said. “Hair has always been an important part of my acting. It’s just funny how that kind of thing helps.” The slicked-back, polished hair of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, the military-style flat-top haircut for Falling Down, and the shaggy, unkempt look he sported in Wonder Boys are all memorable on their own, but what makes Douglas’s performance in these movies iconic is the way he never uses the hairstyle as a crutch. It adds and doesn’t distract. Hair acting isn’t …
