"Betty Anne Waters" -Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow!

J David Moeller

"I lost 22 inches and was never hungry!"

A character actor goes through personality changes faster than the infamous "Sybil" ever did, in relation to his career. A lead actor can make an entire career out of playing "himself" but the character actor rarely gets to "be at home" in his own skin from one role to the next.

The sacrifices made can be quite extreem ranging from gaining and losing extraordinary amounts of weight, ala Robert DiNiro in "Raging Bull", to this writer's shedding of 22 inches of lovingly grown and maintained hair.


It wasn't the first time for a haircut for a role. That came in 1978 for the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol".

Then, in 2008, Johnny Depp came through Chicago filming "Public Enemies". I audtioned for the role of the prison warden in a scene where Depp, playing John Dillinger, grabs and threatens him in an attempt to break out.


I was offered the role, contingent on my cutting my hair, now falling to the small of my back after 15 years growth. I was under contract to WildClaw Theatre to keep my hair and beard intact for the role I was playing in "The Great God Pan" where I played a hundred year old blind man being interrogated by a Nazi intelligence operative...and had to turn down the coveted role.

Now, two years later, Hillary Swank comes to the Midwest with her production of "Betty Anne Waters", the story of a young woman who enters law school later in life to get her degree and fight to get her brother released from prison for allegedly murdering a neighbor -a true story.

Again I was offered the role -as "Grandpa". I would be working in a flashback to when she was eight years old. As before, the producers wanted the hair cut. This time I was under no obligation to keep the length, and accepted the part.

However, I did feel that 15 years was worth something in terms of compensation and my agent -Gray Talent Group- successfully negotiated an equally amenable fee for the trimming.

The film was being shot in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and, at the end of February, I took the train to the set to get the haircut by their hairstylist. They needed me in town for a photo shoot for pictures to display around my casket in a funeral scene. The rest of my work takes place mid-May.

I traveled 500 miles round trip to get that haircut and got paid quite handsomely for it.

It doesn't take long to reverse Mother Nature