will amanda seyfried dye her hair brown wear a wig or keep it blonde for Les Mis?

[ILOHTFAHA (Aida Man)]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 9:03am

Just curious...

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 9:34am

She's shaving her head to match her mother's.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 9:44am

If I'm not mistaken, Cosette and Fantine (and Eponine, for that matter) are all blondes in the book, but I don't know if the movie is staying true to the book. From the recent pix of Hathaway with her cropped hair, it looks like they've made her a brunette, but it remains to be seen if Cosette will resemble her mother or stay a blonde.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 9:50am

I never understood why hair color mattered unless it was either essential to the plot or some iconic character that everyone recognized with a "locked" visual image.

The characters in Les Miz are all memorable, but they don't have iconic visual looks (other than they need to represent their time period). It's not like having a blond Superman or a redheaded Marilyn Monroe.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 10:30am

There have been two blonde Cosette's, one on Broadway, one on the tour, since the begininng. Please forgive me, I can not remember their names Now with the 25th Anniversary "re-design," it seems as if she will be blonde all the time now.

It's not like the merchant says to Fantine, "What pretty hair, what pretty purple locks you got there..." ... If I am not mistaken, I believe Patti LuPone, Randy Graff and Lea Salonga were the only brunette Fantines.

Help me out, correct me if I'm wrong, LizzyCurry LOL

The only thing I hope they don't change in the show and use in the movie is Enjolras' red vest with the gold detail
THAT *is* iconic to me.

Updated On: 4/9/12 at 10:30 AM

[StageManager2]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 10:35am

Enjolras is a blond in the book, too.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 10:39am

I don't remember seeing Cosettes and Fantines with the same hair color. We don't know what the father looked like and we don't even see them together until the finale, so I doubt it matters at all. I just remember Patti and Randy both played red-headed Fantines. The show has also used multi-racial casting to great effect, so I agree with besty that the physical appearance of the characters is not that iconic. Some of the costuming, perhaps (Eponine's boyish outfit and Javert's bicorn hat).

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 10:53am

In the novel, Fantine is blonde and Cosette has chestnut-colored hair.

Christine in Phantom is blonde in the novel too, and we see how well that's worked out. The only relevance to Fantine being blonde is that her nickname is "the Blonde," which isn't mentioned in the musical.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 11:18am

I never understood why hair color mattered unless it was either essential to the plot or some iconic character that everyone recognized with a "locked" visual image.

C'mon besty you should know how obsessive and nit picky show-tune queens are...

[michellek45]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 5:39pm

I don't think Eponine's hair color is ever specified in the novel- don't they mention it along with Azelma's, like "there was one blonde child and one brunette," so it's unclear which is which?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 5:47pm

But does the carpet match the drapes?

Updated On: 4/9/12 at 05:47 PM

[michellek45]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 6:36pm

Victor Hugo would certainly not allow such immodesty. I'm still holding out for Cosette and Marius' wedding night, honestly.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 9:11pm

IIRC, in the novel one has brown hair and one has black hair. I think you can tell which one Eponine is if you try, but it's been a while since I've read that part.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 10:51pm

Eponine is the darker of the two and is described first as a pretty child. She basically goes Lindsay Lohan and is later described thus:

A pale, puny, meagre creature," with a hoarse voice like "a drunken galley slave’s" due to it being "roughened by brandy and by liquors." She now wears dirty and tattered clothing that consists of a chemise and a skirt. She also has missing teeth, mangled hair, bony shoulders, heavy brooding drooping eyes, and a premature-aging face with only a trace of beauty lingering.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 11:05pm

There's also this line though, from Marius's POV:

"Singular fact, she had become more impoverished and more beautiful, two further steps that seemed impossible. She had accomplished a double progress, towards the light and towards distress."

Updated On: 4/9/12 at 11:05 PM

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/10/12 at 12:49am

And I hear all of the girls are letting their bushes grow back into a natural state.

[goodoneinlou2]

Posted: 4/10/12 at 9:19am

Isn't the irl they cast as young Cosette a blonde? That, I think, would answer the question.

[goodoneinlou2]

Posted: 4/10/12 at 9:19am

Isn't the girl they cast as young Cosette a blonde? That, I think, would answer the question.

Updated On: 4/10/12 at 09:19 AM

[michellek45]

Posted: 4/10/12 at 9:35am

Not necessarily; plenty of little kids have really light hair that gets darker as they grow up.

[Salene]

Posted: 4/10/12 at 4:50pm

"The centre of the chain swung very near the ground in the middle, and in the loop, as in the rope of a swing, there were seated and grouped, on that particular evening, in exquisite interlacement, two little girls; one about two years and a half old, the other, eighteen months; the younger in the arms of the other. A handkerchief, cleverly knotted about them, prevented their falling out. A mother had caught sight of that frightful chain, and had said, "Come! there's a plaything for my children."

The two children, who were dressed prettily and with some elegance, were radiant with pleasure; one would have said that they were two roses amid old iron; their eyes were a triumph; their fresh cheeks were full of laughter. One had chestnut hair; the other, brown."

http://www.classicreader.com/book/268/37/ Updated On: 4/10/12 at 04:50 PM

[My Oh My]

Posted: 4/10/12 at 7:16pm

I'm the nit-pickiest of queens. Showtune queens, that is.

And even I don't give a flying f*ck what color Cosette's hair is, much less her pubes.

Just don't give her a 25th anniversary budget tour plastic Disney princess dress, and I'll be a happy queen.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/11/12 at 11:48am

Salene, the passage you quote from the novel about two little girls, one with brown and the other with chestnut hair, does not describe Eponine and Cosette. Rather, it describes Eponine and her sister Anzelma (who does not appear in the musical). In the scene, Fantine approaches Mme. Thenadier with Cosette, whom Hugo lovingly describes without specifying the color of her hair:

"This woman's child was one of the most divine creatures that it is possible to behold. lt was a girl, two or three years of age. She could have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as the coquetry of her dress was concerned; she wore a cap of fine linen, ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and dimpled leg. She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty inspired a desire to take a bite from the apples of her cheeks. Of her eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and that they had magnificent lashes. She was asleep."

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 4/11/12 at 11:58am

Oh, my bad, I thought it was brown and black. I guess I usually think of chestnut and brown as the same color, so that's probably why. I just remembered that they had differently-colored hair.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/11/12 at 12:29pm

Oh fer the love of...

Just pick a shade.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/11/12 at 12:40pm

In any event, when she got out of the convent, Valjean might have taken her to Vidal Sassoon.