An Ode To Jena Malone’s Fearlessness

Jena Malone is everywhere you look these days, and I'm not complaining. I've loved her ever since she was Donnie Darko's love interest (yes, I now realize that movie is terrible, thanks). Her tendency to play similarly moody, oddball indie girls has only endeared her to me more. She's more relatable than Kristen Stewart, edgier than Jennifer Lawrence — she would have been perfect in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. As Johanna in Catching Fire, though, she really reaches a whole new level. I'm not a Hunger Games super-fan, but you know, I've read the books, I see the movies. And, though I love me some J. Lawr, there's no one like Malone in that movie.

As if it's not enough that she's the toughest character in the movie, she also delivers the closest thing to a sexy moment in the whole film. Sure, she's stripping in an elevator and you don't really see anything, and she's doing it more to make a statement than to have sex with anyone, but it was way more electric than every nauseating Katniss/Peeta moment combined. Just saying. It's not often that someone as devastatingly pretty as Malone plays a role with motivations outside of a love interest. She's completely independent — a lot like Lisbeth Salander.

And, finally, I can't write about Malone without talking about how amazing she has been looking these past few years overall. After watching In Our Nature (which I'm pretty sure no one else saw), it was her hair that got me thinking I should try to grow my pixie out into a bob with a swoop. More recently, her crop has gone from great to fabulous — I'm loving it's short length, and how she's not afraid to slick it back. Also, her brow-to-hair-length ratio is genius. She really just goes for it, and that's what I look for in an icon. While she may not actually be as angry as Johanna, she's definitely as fearless.