Does Your Hair Affect Preparing Character Parts for Auditions? by Ayesha Casely-Hayford

Episode 7: “Does Your Hair Affect Preparing Character Parts for Auditions?”

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

Linden Walcott-Burton

Alice Fofana

Verona Rose

Andrew Macbean

Ayesha Casely-Hayford

India Ria Amarteifio

Tobias Deacon

Simone McIntyre

Ketorah Williams

ÂŠ 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

This is a verbatim transcript of our interviews

“Does Your Hair Affect Preparing Character Parts for Auditions?” Part 1 Featuring actors Alice Fofana and Verona Rose with Linden Walcott-Burton VERONA: That’s annoying, do you know why? No, it’s really annoying, because…sorry I won’t waffle too much, I’ll just say this really quickly. So basically, I had erm I just like big hair, ok so I was doing big do-do-twists, yeah? ALICE: Like Marley Just big twists, using this hair called Marley Hair - just big and I just loved it And it was big and I had it up and that, I just used to flip it up to the front like this and just have it swinging. This is really annoying, this guy actually said to me, But a black guy, said to me “Do you think your hair is stopping you getting roles?” And I was like “what do you mean?” Then I thought, do you know what, you’re right, he’s right, because I started studying things on TV, © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

And I thought, you don’t have an office worker, with afro hair. It’s always straight hair. That’s really F-ing annoying actually. And I actually put a picture up of me on my Instagram and Facebook, Of me with afro hair, the big Marley twists, Then a picture of me with straight hair, with weave, then, what was the other one? There was four pictures anyway. I was really angry. I couldn’t think of something clever enough to write because I’m not that clever. She’s very clever. I thought why should I have to change my hair, for a certain role, that’s really really annoying. My thing is that if I’m going for a role, like if I’m going for an office role, there are ways of doing my hair, My hair shouldn’t have to be straight, or it shouldn’t have to be, do you know what I mean, there are ways of actually working my afro. You can neaten it up, because obviously this is my wild look This is a wild look! No, it’s not a wild look, no, it’s not. For me it’s a wild look. I’m not saying wild in a bad way, see you’re taking it in a bad way. I’m saying it’s wild, I’m letting it loose, that’s my hair. I like it out. I’m letting it out. But what I’m saying is that if you want to have a smart look, because there are smart ways of having your hair, as afro hair, and there are ways of just letting it be. I suppose, that office worker, that black office worker is gonna have straight hair. That’s what my issue is, that I don’t have to have straight hair to be looking smart, I can still have my natural hair out But you can tie it in a particular way, you can put it back in a particular way to make it look smart. This is what I’m saying. I understand what you’re saying, but that’s what upsets me, © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

Because why is our natural hair not smart? Do you get what I’m saying? So we’re saying we have to tie it back and put it a certain way to make it look neat. That’s really, like we’re conforming and we’re then not accepting OUR hair as being normal. I see what you’re saying. It’s that our hair can be versatile, it’s just that people instantly think, you have natural hair, they think “ugh” [indicates outwards rejection with hands]. No. We can do different styles to our hair, is what I mean. LINDEN: Thinking about male actors here, not female. As a male actor, the longer your hair is, I think the more you get pigeon-holed as an actor. In the sense that, what I mean is, if you have an afro Or if you have cane-row or dreads or anything like that then you will be seen more for race-specific roles rather than general roles. Like, you would never see a dread-lock guy, a dread-lock black guy in a business part or in a kind of, or in a high, in a banking role, for instance. Whether that’s right or wrong, is something else, but you just wouldn’t see it. So I think, as a male actor, the longer your hair is the more specific your casting becomes and the less option you have in terms of the roles you can play.

Part 2 Featuring actors Ketorah Williams and Simone McIntyre with Tobias Deacon SIMONE: So, I don’t really have issues, I don’t think, for preparing for auditions. It’s more about, would my character have her hair up, if she’s like a lawyer or something, I’d put it up. Otherwise usually down, erm I think just that issue of looking as close to your headshot as possible. KETORAH: So if I’m to go into a casting, if I’m to go in to an audition, with my hair in braids I’m very aware that, you know, well I feel like I’m kind of narrowing my chances of getting the role, unless it’s a character that’s particularly ghetto or urban in some way. On my headshots I’ve got a long flowy weave and I look very nice, not that I don’t look nice now, but I look very nice and erm, I always make a point of saying “you know I can get my hair back like that tomorrow, not a problem or I can have my hair however you want it, without a problem”. But it’s definitely something that I’m conscious of. For me I just try and look like my headshot, because I’ve been told off. So I’ve been to a casting you know, with my fabulous, I think it was box-braids I had, but because my headshot was a bob and the casting director was like “Simone, why have you done that to yourself for” as if I’d inflicted an injury or something, And I was like “what do you mean?” “Your hair” “Oh, the braids” And she was like “so what are you?”. She didn’t realise, it didn’t occur to her I think that I was black. So for me, yeah, I never say the thing of, I can change it if you like, because, well it’s difficult because if you’re doing a part and your part is, well if it has to have a particular hairstyle then you would say that Because I’ve had more than one time, not just that time, people saying “i’m sorry, why is your hair like that?” © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

It’s kind of made me go, ok I try and stick to the headshot. If tomorrow I want to have braids like yours Then I would have to go and get new headshots done Because that’s my new “brand” that’s my new “type of actress” It does change what we go up for. It definitely does. I’m, just trying to be as open as I can with the casting, at the casting point. I think the issue is, my job is to get cast, then from there if I can be part of the decision about how I look for the character, then great. Erm, and I’ve noticed that for me, it’s better to be as open as possible, so to be as neutral as possible with my hair because I do often find that people are getting confused about what I am. I just love having different hairstyles. I get bored really quickly. TOBIAS: I am aware that a lot of people will relate to me via my hair, because looking scruffy like this, is somehow sort of less threatening. Having shorter hair, is a bit more aggressive, especially if it’s fully shaven. But, yes, it displays things about me. My character is a reality TV star from The Valleys, in Wales, and so it was sort of a Gareth Bale type look. Gareth Bale, David Beckham headband because as much as he’s Welsh, and a majority of people in Wales are big fans of rugby In The Valleys it’s all a bit more football and that lifestyle, and that’s where that choice came from. But that was also connected to, the play I’m in, it discusses fantasy and reality and it uses Greek mythology and Greek Gods as a sort of reference point against modern celebrity culture and the demigods we have in the modern world So that’s why I still have the beard and so having the hair back with the beard it looks a bit like a Grecian urn, a kind of painting you might have on those sorts of things so it has that echo as well as having a very modern reference point. [That] Was the plan.

Part 3 Featuring actors Ayesha Casely-Hayford, and India Ria Amarteifio with Andrew Macbean INDIA: I think like anything if you go for a role and have to be older Like at the moment my playing age is obviously older than it was last year I dress up slightly older. I don’t obviously come in, if it was, like your character, was a street-wise skipping rope champion, I wouldn’t come in with like skipping ropes But I’d make myself look street-wise and I’d make myself look older so, using my hair does make me look older in certain styles. Like having it up, like how it is now I would say is my age. Maybe I’d have it lower to make myself look older. I dunno why I would put them together, but I do. AYESHA: No but, I think you’re right Inds I think that’s very true But I think people with all hair, probably, you know, would consider that Like if someone with [European] hair had pigtails or had it in a bun it would change their age. Do you think though having your natural hair, might change the SORT of roles.? I mean you’ve had pretty varied roles haven’t you? Yeah. I mean think about for me then as an actress. Do you think it might affect me, the kind of parts I might get, if I keep having my hair natural? No. I genuinely think that people who have maybe chemically relaxed hair or have, yeah chemically relaxed hair, are more in jeopardy of not getting roles because at least with afro

If you wanted it straight you can have it straight but if it’s chemically relaxed, it doesn’t go back to afro and a lot of the time when people audition for people I mean sometimes they do want a family who is black - so they’ll obviously choose a black child. Okay, so you want to be able to fit in, you want to have as many parts as you can. Yeah, you want to have a wide range. So the more you maybe move against your identity the less you could have a big spectrum. ANDREW: I think some actors talk about well you know you’ve got to have the right shoes and yes you do need to have the right shoes and the costume and everything. But I also think that facial hair is incredibly definitive and whether you’ve go side boards or a moustache, full beard or you’re completely clean shaven It completely indicates the style of person that you are and the period as well, so I am forever growing a beard, shaving it off, shaving a bit of it off. So yeah, that is important to me.