Evangeline Lilly is giving us major Joey King as Gypsy Rose Blanchard in The Act vibes with her new buzzcut, which she documented in a series of photos and videos on Instagram.
The reason behind the short do? We’re not sure, but the actor is currently in pre-production (per IMDB) on an upcoming film called Happy Life, which is the first film from The Mindy Project writer David Stassen, Variety reports. In the film, Lilly will portray a new mom who suspects her husband of having an affair with an Instagram influencer. That’s a situation which could very well lead to an angry head-shaving incident, to be quite honest.
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"#homecut (swipe) Stop or keep going??" she wrote on a post detailing her home haircut on Friday. The series of videos shows her starting with part of her hair pinned up while she uses scissors to chop it short. She then shaves about a third of her head, leaving the rest long, in a cool-looking undercut.
Yes, she kept going!
Lilly followed up with selfie on Saturday rocking a freshly-shaved head and smiling while sitting in a car.
"Hello [world]. It's a BEAUTIFUL day," she wrote.
Her friends and fans almost unanimously loved the short do.
Michelle Monaghan wrote, “I love your scruffy, sweet head!!!!”
“YOU ARE PERFECT,” wrote one commenter. Another simply replied, “Love it!”
The only negative comments came primarily from men, who kept asking why she cut her hair, and sharing their opinions on how women should look.
“Oh my Gosh, whyyyy?!” wrote one.
“W H Y ?” wrote another.
One man, who was clearly up in his feelings, wrote, “The unassailable fact is that a woman is much more beautiful with her hair. (I'm talking only about physical look.)”
As Parisa Hashempour noted in a recent essay for Refinery29 about cutting her own hair short, “Hair acts as a marker of gender identity and it seems that when women choose to subvert this, they become a threat.”
Long hair being equated to traditional notions of femininity is deeply ingrained in modern culture, where young girls are fed stories of princesses with long locks as the ideal. Dr. Victoria Showunmi, a lecturer at University College London, said: "This in itself speaks back to the romanticised notion that women are not women unless they have very long hair, flowing in the wind."
Refinery29 reached out to Lilly’s reps to confirm if this was for a role but, as to the “why” behind Lilly chopping her chestnut locks, she didn’t offer a reason on Instagram. And she doesn’t need to.