Annabelle Dexter-Jones has a way of making a big splash from a small leap. She was the unforgettably icy troublemaker Naomi Pierce on Succession, where her mastery of a sharp haircut and a luxuriously minimalist wardrobe set fashion editors panting. On Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story: Delicate Part Two, on FX this month, she has a wild and woolly character arc. Dexter-Jones lives in New York City, where she’s known as a cool girl in a family filled with cool (Mark, Samantha, and Charlotte Ronson are her half-siblings; Alexander Dexter-Jones is her brother; Ann Dexter-Jones and Foreigner’s Mick Jones are her parents). For clues about the characters she plays on-screen and in life, just look at the hair on her head. —Linda Wells
I believe a haircut can change your life. None of us really has control over anything. But my hair is something I do have control over.
At work, I want to exploit every visual aspect of the character I’m playing to try to reveal who she is. As an actor, you have such a short amount of time to tell who you are. And there’s something about the hair that just tells you so much about a person.
On Succession, Naomi Pierce was a small part, but I wanted to be very clear about who I was. The visual telling of that was really important. There’s something about a haircut that feels like some sort of completion. The bob is finished, and it’s graphic. For the third season, it was a much shorter, sleeker bob. And for the last season, my friend and hairstylist, Ashley Javier, was like, “What do you think about a mullet?” I was not thinking that at all. The mullet has a really bad rep, but there are chic, elevated versions. The word has a whole stigma. So to make it more palatable, Ashley called it a moule-ette. Over the summer Naomi and Kendall had broken up, and so I feel like: break up, get your hair cut. It’s also that clichéd, symbolic shedding.
It felt very close to a Princess Diana look, and that whole Sam McKnight moment. The haircut she got suddenly told us that this was a person who has evolved and changed. And it seemed like with that haircut she was getting closer to who she was. That was so powerful. It was like she had met herself and had this confidence.
Until I was about 12, 13, I had long white-blond hair, and then I started dying it pink, blue, every Manic Panic color. I went to visit my sister Samantha in Paris, and she took me to Christophe Robin’s salon. They bleached the front part and were going to make it orange, and it burned off. I’m sure I cried. But then I rocked it.
Later, it had to be perfectly straight. I had wavy hair, and I wanted that flat-ironed straight hair. It was Kate Moss in the Calvin Klein ads. Isn’t it always Kate Moss? After that, my hair was always this big blond mess, which was also a pretty accurate reflection of those years of my life.
When I switched to a bob, it wasn’t to emulate anyone else. And I think that’s why it felt so good. Obviously, a million people have had a bob, but this didn’t feel like someone else. I was probably 28, 29, which is Saturn’s return, right? I’m not really good at astrology. It’s supposed to be when as a woman, you come into yourself. There was a sophistication, a refinement, something more. It makes it a lot easier to get dressed actually, because something about it just looks finished.
When I wrote and directed a short film, “Cecile on the Phone,” Ashley and I talked about what I wanted the character to be. I wanted something graphic. He showed me a Smiths video of this girl with short blond hair and a beret. So we did a cut inspired by that. And all of a sudden, there’s a character. Of course, there’s a lot of other work you have to do, but it’s like the cherry on top.
I was growing my hair out when I got this job for American Horror Story. So I cut my hair short, like a Mia Farrow haircut. I love getting my hair cut.
There’s this quote from an Ernest Hemingway novel. One character says to the other, “How did you go bankrupt?” And he says, “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” And not to sound totally pretentious, but I think about that all the time. There’s a lot that precipitates a moment. Then there’s the moment when it’s visible to everyone. But there’s this whole story that leads up to that moment.
I think I’m going to grow my hair. And I do have fantasies about high ponytails.
