What Do You Hate About Your Hair and Being An Actor? by Ayesha Casely-Hayford

Episode 4: “What Do You Hate About Your Hair and Being An Actor?”

About Afro Archives

Afro Archives explores heritage and identity within UK society. It investigates images of black women through promotion of self-expression and confidence to be who we naturally are. This project seeks to promote and celebrate afro hair by having inclusive discussions about hair and hair-related experiences with people of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and creeds.

“A Performer’s World”

“A Performer’s World” showcases with comparison the experience of women with afro-textured hair through the eyes of the acting industry, where what we look like, matters. By asking to a diverse group of actors questions like: “Would You Shave Off All Your Hair for a Film?” and “Your Hair Represents Who You Are”, True or False?” we uniquely examine the responsibility of media, and curators of culture, as well as how we see ourselves and how society sees and portrays us. “A Performer’s World” could not have been made without the time, generosity, and collaboration of the featured artists, and co-creatives. Thank you to all involved.

Big Thanks to our host filming location, The Black Cultural Archives, in Brixton.

Creatives: Africa Fashion (Afro Archives Blog Host), Robbie Spotswood (Photography), Chris Lovell (DOP), Imogen Mackay Dall (on-location Director), Loreen Brown (Photography), Livvy BakerMendoza (Music) Ayesha Casely-Hayford (Editor, Producer).

Main Creative Team

Creator & Producer Ayesha Casely-Hayford is an actress, award-winning voice artist and employment lawyer of Ghanian descent, born in London and raised in Kent. With her roots in law, specialising in employment law and discrimination, and as former chair of the board of trustees for The Act For Change Project, a charity campaigning for greater diversity in the arts, she is uniquely positioned to see the social, performative and legal issues facing black women in the UK today.

Photo credit: Helen Murray Photography

Director Imogen Mackay Dall is a Sydney-born writer, director and ‘ginger ninja’ raised in Tokyo, Washington D.C. and London. She wrote and directed the award-winning conservation documentar y Mystery of the Gnaraloo Turtles (2017) and is writing features for Pinewood Studios and Same Name productions. Keen to advance social issues in her work, Imogen is also writing Creative Breakdown Insurance, a book to help artists and freelancers manage their mental health.

Photo credit: Helen Murray Photography

Featuring in this Episode and With Thanks To

Judith Quinn

Alice Fofana

Verona Rose

Amrou Al-Khadi

Ayesha Casely-Hayford

India Ria Amarteifio

Annabelle Brown

Simone McIntyre

Ketorah Williams

ÂŠ 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

This is a verbatim transcript of our interviews

“What Do You Hate About Your Hair and Being An Actor?” Part 1 Featuring actors Alice Fofana and Verona Rose with Judith Quin VERONA: Ok so what I hate about my hair and being an actor. For me it’s not knowing how to wear my hair for an audition or not knowing how to have my hair for my headshots. That is like a massive thing. Sometimes [when] I apply for an audition, I do have headshots with all different hairstyles. ALICE: It’s not so much what I hate, it’s more, as Verona said, it’s trying to figure out what they want, when you go there. They look at your picture and they think, oh yeah, she looks great - with most of my headshots I have my hair cane-rowed back, in two plaits, so you can see my face, so I do get a bit like, oh my gosh, if I go there with my big afro, what if they look at my hair and go, “no, we don’t want you” because it is a look they are looking for, they do look at you and go “yeah you are the perfect look”. And I think hate is a strong word. Yeah I wouldn’t say hate, I love my hair to bits. But it does make me go “oh what would the casting director want, what would they want my hair like” but I guess you just have to go in there and be like “hey, this is me I’m gonna do the role you want me to do and if you want to change my hair, then yeah! © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

But this is me - I love my hair”. JUDITH: When I decided to shave all my hair off and go away for three months, I asked my agent first before I did it, which normal people don’t have to do, they don’t have to ask permission. So I said to my agents, look I’m going away for three months, I’m naturally grey, I want to see how grey I am, I want to see how it looks. I’ve been dyeing my hair for years, there’s no way it’s going to naturally go, so can I shave it off, would that be cool? They said yes, so I did. Liberating, loved it. And then I came back and my hair was probably about yeah, yay-long [indicates a few inches] and like white and dark, iron grey, I loved it. And I sent a photo to my agents and I was like, “can we work with this? I’m gonna get new headshots done”. And that’s when it really hit home that how much as a performer your hair is not your own, ‘cause they just said “No. Your hair looks too old for your face. Casting directors won’t know what to do with you. You have to dye it. It has to be another colour, a darker colour.” I went blonde for a bit cause I’d never been blond and I thought what the hell, and then I came to this. Erm, I was born with jet black dark brown hair, it went to dark brown after about a year but always every summer, in the sun I would get two streaks of red - here [indicates right side of head] and here [indicates left side of head]. Natural. So I’ve always wanted to go red. So that is why I am now a red head. Although I did get my new headshots done, sent them to my agent going, “here’s my new headshots” and then two days later I got the letter in the post, that they hadn’t told me about, saying that they were letting me go. I don’t blame my hair for that (laughs) but it was one of those things that I’d taken their advice, and then they weren’t there anyway. So hair, as a performer, yeah, that’s a big thing and it’s annoying ‘cause your hair is not your own. Even my hairdresser knows that she can’t do anything too dramatically different with it ‘cause then it costs me £250 in headshots. That’s, that would be the most frustrating thing. And as a woman, taking the choice to have it short. There’s that thing of, is it limiting my roles? Is it limiting how I will be cast?

It’s amazing how much I can still do with this. I did a show about a year and a bit ago, and it’s amazing what you can do with back-combing and a bit of hairspray. So to anyone out there feeling stuck in their hair because of their career - it really, I don’t think that it makes much difference. Just do what you want - as long as you can afford the new headshots…that’s it really! But ultimately, am I gonna let hair rule my life? Er…no!

Part 2 Featuring actors Ketorah Williams and Simone McIntyre with Amrou Al-Khadi KETORAH: What do I hate about my hair and being an actor. Hmmm, I wouldn’t say I hate anything but as an actor if when you’re doing theatre and when you’re touring, like if I’ve got a full head of weave and a closure, I have to think - ok - after a month or so the closure’s gonna start moving slightly a little bit, it might start rising a little bit so I need to be thinking okay I need to make sure I can get either back to London for a hairdressers Or find a hairdressers somewhere where I can reset the closure so I don’t feel like I’m wearing a hat at the end of the tour (both laugh). And then with braids as well, at the beginning of the tour they’ll look fresh, they’ll look gorgeous but after you’ve slept on your hair for what, a month, six weeks, it starts getting a little bit messy and then. SIMONE: Yeah I think for me, it’s the headshots thing, you’ve got to look like your headshot. And so, I always look a bit ambiguous, so if I turn up tomorrow with braids, instead of what I look like at the moment, in my headshots, it causes an issue. So whenever you decide it and decide to go natural without straightening or whatever, you have to go, “oooh, have I got up-to-date headshots of that?” And if you haven’t, you’ve got a problem. So that’s a bit expensive. Erm…that’s a bit annoying. I don’t think anyone likes getting a call for a big audition and well you’re on the verge of your next straightening appointment or something - so you look really manky, And it’s like the day before but that happens, so you have to improvise or just do what can with the GHDs and stuff. Wigs. I haven’t got that far yet (both laugh) AMROU: I guess the only thing I find annoying about, as I said, I have a lot of freedom with wigs and when I do drag. Erm, but annoyingly, as a guy and when I was at Cambridge and when I was a student I used to have peroxide red mohawks, used to shave it on the side, and because I’m a © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

male actor and parts for men and especially Arabic men are normally quite serious, I’m not really allowed to change my hair and give it that much of an identity. So I actually do feel restricted in my male hair because of the potential kind of implication of getting jobs. I wish I could dye it pink and yellow and green like I do with all my wigs, but I guess I’ve found a kind of vehicle for that creativity in the wigs that I wear when I do drag. But yeah it is actually limited by being an actor definitely, image is annoying. Anything else?!

Part 3 Featuring actors Ayesha Casely-Hayford and India Ria Amarteifio with Annabelle Brown INDIA: One or two people that I’ve ever done a job, with actually know how to do my hair. AYESHA: That’s a really good point Inds. Literally I go in and they’re like - the girl next to me - who’s got European hair - will sit in hair for an hour, And I go in and I know myself I haven’t even brushed it ‘cause I leave it out so they can do it, they’re like (briefly ruffles her hair) “that’s perfect”. That’s exactly what happened to me last month. And it’s not, and it’s so annoying cause you want to go like, I will just do it myself. My mum has just turned around and gone, I’ll just put it up a bit neater and they’re like “Actually it looks better” - you could have done that, it takes like three seconds. But they’re not trained. But even people with our hair don’t know what to do with it. I think what is upsetting about it is the lack of necessity or importance - so that’s your job - you’re a make-up artist you’re a hair artist, they haven’t considered people with our hair might come on set. So they haven’t got the necessary training. They should. Absolutely they should. It’s 2015 do you not think you would encounter someone with afro hair. I know isn’t it sad. It is though. It’s like not part of the essential education or training or something. It’s not. I’m sad that you’ve experienced that and I’ve experienced that too. Do you think that’s something we hate about our hair because of that though? Hate’s a strong word. I very dislike, is that a word in English? © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

I very much dislike that. Okay, you just dislike, perhaps you dislike that our hair, and not that our hair’s the same, because it isn’t, but having afro hair, is not, the “norm” - in our society, In our industry, The world we’re trying to operate in and be successful in, We are still not, catered for perhaps? Yes. Then I agree with you because that’s what I think too. And also, I don’t like people putting gel in my hair. Mmm, but you know people with our hair do that and we had to do some improv stuff and she was being a hairdresser and I was the customer, and the directors had bought these little metal clips, you know and they’re really bad for our hair and they pull it out. Those clippy things Yeah they’re terrible So the directors had bought them, but the woman who is like Afro Caribbean heritage, she didn’t have to use them and she was like putting them in. And I was really stressed out, because I had to stay in character, I couldn’t just suddenly go [spasms] I had to stay in character and afterwards I was just angry because, why did I have to go to work and put my hair in jeopardy? ANNABELLE: Hair is often so integral as an actress, as to how one approaches - well not how one approaches a character - it comes towards the end But it’s very much part of it And yes the morning of the audition, the agonising, what do I do with my - how shall I do my hair?! Because it does feel so very much, more than what you wear. Wearing make-up or not, it’s the hair, and sort of going “is my hair right for the role?” which in numerous ways, is probably completely irrational. Yeah, whether it’s rational or not it certainly feels like a thing you go through going “oooh, oh, would she wear her hair like that? Do I wear my hair like that?” I certainly often have the thing of going “ooh, this feels like a better hairstyle for the character, but I suddenly look too young with my hair like that”.

I had a costume fitting this morning, and that thing of going, this historically appropriate hair and headdress combination, is absolutely apt but looks ridiculous on me because I’ve got a pin head, as well so what I do with my hair or what’s done with my hair kind of effects that enormously. And there is a huge amount of the grass being greener - with other actresses - I’m always jealous of people who have hair that seems to be able to do something. Probably actually drier hair - but the kind of hair, that just goes up and it stays and it has body and shape, and I’m going - it would take me 20 minutes of back-combing and half a can of hair spray and four hundred pins to get that effect that you’ve just swept up with a single hairband. Ones hair can suddenly undermine you, and practically if you’re halfway through a scene and suddenly all your pins have fallen out your hair. So you’re gently trying to maintain some sense of dignity while getting floppy bits of hair out of your face. Hair is a pain. But then it can look lovely.