There’s no way to sugarcoat it: In Hollywood, looks have a lot to do with an actor's success. And audiences can become so attached to seeing performers look a particular way that it somehow becomes their signature. There’s something about Hollywood’s fieriest redheads in particular that always catches our eye. For so many ginger actors, their locks may be the physical feature you most associate with them. The secret is, though, that many of the celebrities most famous for being redheads don't come by that color naturally. Read on to find out which ginger stars are actually covering up their normal shade, and for Hollywood relationships with big age gaps, here are 17 Celebrity Women Who Have Much Younger Partners.
1 | Emma Stone
Tinseltown/ShutterstockIn one of Emma Stone’s earliest movies, Superbad, she appeared on film with red hair for the first time, and for the most part, that’s the color she’s stuck with. She has gone blonde from time to time, like in The Amazing Spider-Man, and that's actually her natural color, according to her Superbad colorist, Tracey Cunningham.
“At the time, when she was around 17 or 18, she was already experienced in coloring her hair—it's naturally blonde, but she was coloring it this sort of murky brown color at that time,” Cunningham told Refinery29. “Without hesitation I made her really red—and she looked incredible.”
For the scoop on one of the most famous styles of all time, here's The One Thing Jennifer Aniston Hated About Her Friends Haircut.
2 | Amy Adams
Jon Kopaloff/Getty ImagesSharp Objects star Amy Adams wasn’t born with red hair either. Like Stone, Adams is also a natural blonde, and during a TimesTalk event, she shared that auditioning with her real color caused her to be typecast.
"The minute I went red, it was like, 'quirky' instead of flirtatious and dumb," she said at the event, via Allure. “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."
3 | Lucille Ball
Tim Boxer/Getty ImagesPlaying the lead in I Love Lucy made Lucille Ball one of the most famous redheads of all time, so you may be shocked find out that the color wasn’t actually hers. The comedian was a brunette to begin with, though she was encouraged to change things up by studio execs. It obviously worked, because Lucy quickly became a star with a hair color that her stylist, Irma Kusely, told the Television Academy is actually considered “golden apricot.”
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4 | Debra Messing
DFree/ShutterstockIt’s impossible to imagine Grace Adler with anything but red hair, but Debra Messing definitely didn’t bring her natural color to her Will & Grace role (though the curls are all hers).
“My hair has been every color. I'm not exactly sure what the real color is,” she admitted to Today in 2016. “I look back at my baby pictures and I had dark brown hair. But by the time I was in kindergarten, I was a strawberry blonde. Like, really light red. As I got older it became more auburn. So I have no idea.”
5 | Christina Hendricks
Tinseltown/ShutterstockAdd another natural blonde to the list! Mad Men star Christina Hendricks told InStyle that she’s been dying her hair since she was 10 years old, thanks to all her redheaded childhood icons, like Daphne from Scooby Doo and even Lucille Ball, who obviously wasn’t a natural redhead, either.
For some inside info from a stylist to the stars, here's A Celebrity Stylist Is Rating Stars Based on How Rude They Are.
6 | Alyson Hannigan
Kathy Hutchins/ShutterstockOn Buffy the Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother, Alyson Hannigan rocked red, but in reality, she's a another born brunette.
7 | Cynthia Nixon
taniavolobueva/ShutterstockOn Sex and the City, Miranda Hobbes is the argumentative, self-assured redhead in the group, but Cynthia Nixon herself is actually blonde. And in 2010, she told Marie Clairethat’s what she prefers, because it makes her less recognizable when she’s out in public.
"I go red for the film, but I go back to my own hair as soon as I possibly can," she said. "I like the red very much...I certainly feel like I look like myself…but it's a lot of work to maintain."
For proof that changing your hair can be a seriously personal decision, check out Demi Lovato Explains the Emotional Reason Why She Chopped Off Her Hair.
8 | Kate Walsh
lev radin/ShutterstockAs Dr. Addison Shepherd on Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, Kate Walsh is always a redhead. But her natural color is an ash brown. Walsh has opened up about how hard red hair can be to keep up with, telling InStyle that she uses three different shampoos to keep her red bright.
9 | Gillian Anderson
DFree/ShutterstockGillian Anderson first became a household name because of The X-Files, and of course we knew Dana Scully as a petite redhead. But Anderson’s natural color is a “boring mousy brown,” as she explained in her own words to Us Weekly in 2015.
For tips on keeping your coif healthy, check out You've Been Washing Your Hair Wrong Your Whole Life, Experts Say.
10 | Brittany Snow
Kathy Hutchins/ShutterstockWe’ve seen a lot of blonde Brittany Snow, but in Pitch Perfect (one of her biggest moves to date), her character was all about the red. This natural blonde was a fan, but not of the darker red she sported in the sequel.
“I think my least favorite hair color was the hair color that I had in Pitch Perfect 2,” she told Yahoo! Style. “They really wanted me to be dark red and I wanted to be lighter like I was in the first movie, but they didn’t want that. But I rocked some light red for a year, after it faded.”
11 | Sophie Turner
ShutterstockSophie Turner will always be known as Sansa Stark, the redheaded Queen of the North on Game of Thrones. Her hair is really blonde, however, and the change to red took some getting used to.
"There seemed to be a bad connotation with red or ginger hair, so I was nervous, but it was nice to transform my look for my first role,” Turner told Vogue. “Plus, it spurred my appreciation for how hair can change one's look and personality."
