Angelina Jolie Is Nearly Unrecognizable With Curly-Haired Movie Look

While Angelina Jolie's best red carpet looks prove that she's the queen of Old Hollywood glamour, the movie star has looked strikingly different in some of her on-screen roles. An example of this comes from the 2007 film "A Mighty Heart," with the LA native wearing a coily hairstyle and dark contacts to portray Mariane Pearl. Adapted from the journalist's memoir, the Pakistan-set movie centers around the disappearance of Mariane's husband Daniel, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in 2002. 

"It's probably the most important thing I've ever done in film," Jolie said in a behind-the-scenes interview. The standout performance required a notable transformation, with the Hollywood figure trading in her long brunette tresses for a curly-haired wig seen in paparazzi shots and movie stills. Her typical glowy makeup was replaced with a flatter, more minimalist beauty look that reminds use that Jolie looks gorgeous going makeup free, while dark contacts disguised her normally blue eyes. The movie transformation marks a nearly unrecognizable look for the star, but Jolie's casting and appearance garnered major race-related criticisms during the film's release.

Because Mariane Pearl is a biracial woman, the decision to cast Angelina Jolie as the journalist in "A Mighty Heart" produced a lot of criticism and discourse in the late 2000s. Pearl was born in France to an Afro-Cuban mother and Dutch father, with the author having coily hair and a tan complexion. Critics drew striking comparisons between Jolie's on-screen appearance and Hollywood's history with blackface, with many speculating that the actor had darkened her skin color for the role. Paramount Vantage, the studio that produced the film, denied this, attributing any color discrepancy to the movie's lighting.

Other criticisms speak to the ongoing racial disparity of the movie industry, with some online detractors of the time pointing to talented women of color who would've suited the role. Though producer Brad Pitt admittedly had his then-wife in mind for the role, the casting decision is largely defended as being Pearl's choice. The two women were evidently friends prior to filming, with their kids being playmates, but there are mixed reports about how their connection started. "This is not about skin color. I wanted her to play me because I trust her," the author told Newsweek. "Aren't we past this?" In this way, Jolie's curly-haired look is head-turning beyond being a nearly unrecognizable look from the movie star.