Italia Ricci stars in
Chasing Life every Monday at 9p on ABC Family, and it’s one of the most important shows on television. She plays a young woman going through Chemotherapy and that requires her to have many different hairstyles on the show including no hair at all.
Recently, I talked to her about the different hairstyles she has the ABC Family drama. She revealed that, “When I am in the wigs and the bald cap, it helps me be April. It makes my job a little easier.†Then she added, “I don’t have to take such a mental leap because I can see it there visually and physically. I am already April. It becomes a little bit easier to be that.”
Believe it or not, it takes her about 3 hours to become bald for the show. Once the bald cap is on, she can wear it for 12-15 hours and she shared with me that she suffers for her art. She said, “I’ve got blisters and scabs and stuff.” Ricci added, “But at the end of the day, I still have that little bit of guilt because I get to take it off and have my real hair. So I can’t really complain. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”
So would she shave her head for the role? She told me, “I wanted to shave it for last season.” Why didn’t she? The producers wouldn’t let her do it because the show goes to Boston every 10 episodes to shoot exteriors. Then she explained, “We are doing a bunch of episodes on the same day and I am wearing like 5 different wigs, it wouldn’t have made sense for me to cut my hair.” That and they begged her not to do it. Even her fiance’ Robbie Amell is against it. But all she wants to do is cut her “damn hairâ€.
Whether she has her real hair, a bald cap or a wig of whatever length, she is still as beautiful on the outside as she is on the insider. And one day, she will be able to cut her “damn her!†But for now she gets to keep her shoulder length wavy locks.
