Jena Malone: ‘Shaving my head made me embrace my femininity’

Jena Malone loves shaving her head so much she has urged every woman to try it “at least once”.

The 31-year-old actress has been required to get rid of her locks for two movie roles, and she admits that although the process might scare many female film stars, she found the buzz cut empowering.

In fact, she loved being bald so much that she was left disappointed when she wasn’t required to shave her head to reprise her role as Johanna Mason in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.

“I’ve shaved my head for roles before!” Jena told Vulture.com, “and I was ready to do that! I’ve shaved my head twice now, and I love it. I did it once when I was 18, and once for this film that I was about to leave to do, but then it fell through about two days before I got on set. It was devastating because there I was, with a mohawk!

“I was like, ‘Okay… what are we going to do?’ But I loved it. Every woman should shave her head at least once. It’s an important thing to see what your head feels like, what your senses feel like, and also what you feel like as a woman, when you’re stripped from these very identifiable things, you know, so you can figure out what is really feminine inside.”

While Jena has starred in movies such as Donnie Darko and Stepmom, she become something of a household name thanks to her role as Johanna in The Hunger Games franchise. She has experimented with different looks over the years, but learned to accept her appearance as she hit 30.

“After every break-up, after every movie, I always want to cut my hair off,” she said. “Whenever we finish a chapter in our life. But I finally got to the point where I’m like, ‘You’re not in your 20s anymore! You don’t have to change your hair every two seconds. Let it be.”