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Last summer, a redheaded Sophie Turner (aka the fiery Sansa Stark on HBO’s Game of Thrones) announced on Instagram that she “did a thing” and dyed her hair back to blonde. That “thing” not only sparked tens of thousands of comments—emotions ranging from “Beautiful!” to “OH NOO GINGER FOR LIFE”—but also a wave of GOT Season 7 theories surrounding spoilers and plot shifts that, by drawing comparisons to costar Emilia Clarke’s towheaded Targaryen roots, are making headlines to this day. “I think they really killed her off,” writes one fan. “So sad, I liked how her character started rising back up.” A loud crying-face emoji bookended the comment.
“It was flattering,” says Turner of the emotional connection that her followers had to her character, and her hair, which she dyed for her next role as a tatted-out southern girl in the indie movie Huntsville. “But people really freaked.”
In real life, Turner is alive and well in her natural baby blonde hue. So well, in fact, that all the hype landed the 21-year-old a global ambassadorship for Wella Professionals (not to mention Louis Vuitton’s forthcoming Fall campaign). Today, she is on the tennis court with friends, her newly blanched lengths wrapped up tightly in a long French plait, and admittedly hitting the craft services table harder than the asphalt, she says. Here, she talks hair crushes (besides her boyfriend Joe Jonas, that is), her beauty routine, which “involved Wella products long before the ambassadorship,” she says, and her fantasy hair hue of choice. Spoiler alert: It’s not what you will expect.
You’ve got a great head of hair. What’s your routine?
I wash my hair every other day, and my favorite product is Wella’s Thermal Image heat protection spray. It keeps hair in amazing condition especially if you’re changing up the color, like me. Even when I’m not [dyeing it], I’m always getting it styled and straightened and curled, so it keeps it healthy and really shiny.
People really expressed how they felt about you going back to blonde when you broke the news on Instagram last July. . .
People seemed to think it was a spoiler for Game of Thrones. It was kind of quite flattering really, because when I first started, a lot of people didn’t like that I changed my hair to blonde, they were attached to the red on the show, which only adds to why I think hair is so important [in role development]—it ignites a connection that people feel with the character. I [dyed my hair blonde] for a movie called Hunstville. I played a girl from Alabama with tattoos up my arm. It was such a different character for me, so I wanted to completely transform myself, and the hair was the icing on the cake.
Being a natural blonde, how did you feel when you first dyed it red as a teenager?
It was difficult, especially being in an all-girls school. There seemed to be a bad connotation with red or ginger hair, so I was nervous, but it was nice to transform my look for my first role. Plus, it spurred my appreciation for how hair can change one’s look and personality.
How did it change your personality?
My blonde hair always made me feel more confident and outgoing, and a bit more rock ’n’ roll. Now, I wear a lip or darker eye makeup, and I wear it more messy than when I had the red hair. I wouldn’t wear bright clothes because I wanted the hair to speak for itself, but now as a blonde, I wear whatever I want. It affects everything from clothing to how I walk and talk and hold myself. It kind of felt like coming home, there was a comfort in it for sure.
If you could dye your hair any color, what would it be?
Oh, I don’t know! I think it’d be fun to go black, a bit dark for a while, though I don’t know if it would suit me. That or, actually, I was thinking of going platinum, like almost gray. I don’t think I could pull off a buzz cut, though for a role I would. . . . I love Kristen Stewart’s buzz cut. She’s my girl crush, my hair crush, my everything crush!
And who is your male hair crush?[Actor] Robert Sheehan. Those curls? Amazing. I don’t know him but I have a hair crush on him. Oh, and I forgot about Kit [Harington]! He’s like the number one hair crush in the world, right? Every guy wants that hair. . . . But don’t tell him. I’d hate for his head to get any bigger. . . . I’m joking! I love him.