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

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

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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.

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Enjolras is a blond in the book, too.

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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.

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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?

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

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.

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

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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

"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

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."

Oh fer the love of...

Just pick a shade.

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