Recently, a MediaCorp executive producer complained to me, “You’ve looked the same for years and years. Every time I see you on TV, you have that long, rebonded hair look. It’s time for a change, you know.”

Now, that was quite hurtful because:

1. My hair is not rebonded.

2. It’s not my fault that MediaCorp stylists prefer leaving my hair ramrod straight instead of giving me fanciful hairstyles.

3. I have had many jobs in which I looked totally different. Like in I Not Stupid Too and in that Kao Magiclean commercial.

Now, of course, I did not say all that to the EP because EPs are very busy people and have no time to entertain the whines of struggling nobody actresses. And I’m not being facetious by saying that. I live by that rule of thumb: Never whine or grumble in the face of people to whom you owe your living.

So, I was moved to look into the matter myself.

I went home and activated the folders where I keep the pictures of my past shoots. Then, I made a montage of a hundred versions of my scary face to compare the hair.

Fine. There aren’t a hundred faces here, but it’s close enough.

After making the montage, I was taken aback by the realisation that the executive producer was quite right. I look the same in most of these photos. Whether my fringe is long or short, whether it’s brushed back or windswept or hanging like a curtain, even when it’s all tied up, I look the freaking same.

It’s that horrid limp, straight hair that looks like it’s been painted onto my scalp. (Except in the picture on the 2nd column, 2nd row. That one’s a wig. But, see, even when they put wigs on me, they manage to make me look as similar as ever.)

So. I shall have to do something drastic to prevent people from getting sick of my long, straight, black hair. I’m sure it is very irritating to always see me looking the same on screen. I myself feel irritated by it. I’ve had long, straight, black hair since I was two years old.

At various points of my life, I have made attempts to change my hairstyle but, unfortunately, it always grows back long and straight.

So, this time, I shall cut my hair really short and colour it and maybe end up with something like this:

The only problem is that I’m always in-between jobs and auditions and I can’t cut my hair until I totally have no projects lined up and I haven’t been to an audition in the last two months.

Which is quite impossible because I can’t NOT go for auditions. How would I survive?

I am in quite a conundrum, aren’t I?

Categories: Acting Journal

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• I need my long hair back!
• Fashion Diary #1: Watermelon Street
• Much ado about my hair