As expected, Aussie actress Margot Robbie underwent quite the transformation to emulate her real-life counterpart Tonya Harding in the Oscar-nominated film “I, Tonya.” Besides the extensive training needed to play a figure skater, the 27-year-old also needed to look the part, which meant she would have to quite literally go back in time.
Harding’s career peaked in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when scrunchies and teased hair were a thing, so Adruitha Lee and her team pulled out all the stops. In an interview with Refinery29, the hairstylist detailed just how she was able to style Robbie’s hair without leaving it completely damaged. No surprise here: they used a lot of wigs.
MORE: Everything You Need to Know About Margot Robbie ‘We had to tell the story, and correctly interpret the hair. So many people have tried to get the look and have missed, but I wanted to get it right because I didn’t want anything to distract from the story, or distract Margot from trying to become Tonya,” she said.
“Just dealing with the wigs, that was a challenge in itself. I would perm and colour the wigs over and over again to get the texture…hat look was very popular at the time, but Tonya Harding took it to a whole new level ? so we had to really fry the wigs.”
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And while hairspray and mousse were the dujour styling products of Harding’s heyday, Lee admitted to extending that fried and dyed effect with ...