Zosia Mamet on 'Girls,' Feminism, and Not Washing Her Hair
by Stephanie Saltzman
Zosia Mamet plays the hilarious up-talker Shoshanna Shapiro on HBO’s Girls—a character so hyper she often seems in the grips of a caffeine rage. But in real life, she’s so chill and easy to talk to that the fangirl in me nearly forgot to freak out when I met her earlier this week. She stopped by to talk about her role in theGlamour Make Your Mark contest, and as soon as she found out I was fromAllure, she said, “Oh, so you’re definitely not going to ask about my hair.” I appreciate a person who’s fluent in sarcasm.
[Awkward pause.] So tell me about your hair. ”I had never dyed it until I went blonde for a play I did two years ago. It was a very big deal. I was like, I’m taking off my chastity belt! And I loved it, but I had to go back [to my natural hair color] for the show. I’ve wanted to do it ever since. I would stare at girls on the subway and just be so jealous. Literally the day we wrapped, I asked Lena [Dunham] if I could dye it. I went full-on bleached blonde, and I love it so much. Now I want to go violet or dye it pink. I totally just want to do all of it.”
Lena’s blonde now, too. Did you make the decision before her? ”I don’t know. I had to ask for permission, and she didn’t tell me she was doing it, but she said she’d wanted to do it for a long time, too. Great minds.”
What was it like when you cut it so short? ”Women in my family have incredible attachment to our hair. We all have very thick hair, and for a very long time, all of us had long hair. My identity felt wrapped up in it. As women, we often attach our femininity to our hair. And that’s not what makes us feminine. I sort of just wanted to cast that off. It’s just hair!”
How do you keep it healthy? ”When my hair was long, it was always quite dry, and I never really did anything to it. I never brushed it, I washed it rarely….”
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What’s rarely? ”Like, once a week, maybe. When I cut it short, it got kind of flat and a hairdresser suggested that I stop washing it. So that’s what I’m trying. They call it the no-poo.”
How long have you gone without shampooing? ”I had gone about three weeks, and then I dyed it, and they had to wash it. So now it’s about two and a half weeks. It feels great. I rinse it with hot water, but other than that, nothing. I’m a runner and a Spinner, and my head gets sweaty in a gross way. But so far, it seems to be fine. My boyfriend hasn’t complained lying in bed next to me.”
Has your new cut impacted Shoshanna’s habitual hair experimentation in the upcoming season? ”Well, there are no donuts happening. But we got to play a lot with hair accessories, and everyone in the makeup trailer got super into it.”
Are there any hair or makeup tricks you’ve picked up on the set of Girls? ”I’m not superskilled in that department. I’m learning. I think the two items I own are Blinc Mascara and M.A.C. Russian Red lipstick. The mascara is amazing—it tubes your lashes instead of painting them, which helps me so much because my skin is so sensitive. You just wet it and hold it there for a few minutes and then it pulls right off.”
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Do you have any favorite skin-care products? ”I have incredibly sensitive skin, and I’m also allergic to titanium, which is in almost everything because it’s what makes sunscreen. I’ve discovered that simplicity is the thing that works best for me. I use Cetaphil Gentle Cleanser. I have for many years, and I love it. And then Osea is my all-time favorite product. It’s all organic, so you can pronounce all of the ingredients. I love it. It ’s run by a mother and a daughter; they make everything in Malibu. They have Atmosphere Protection Cream, and then they have a heavier one that I use in the winter. They’re my favorite ever.”
You’ve become involved with the Glamour Make Your Mark contest. What inspired you? ”The main message is just to feel confident in your choices, no matter what they are. I saw a girl on the subway the other day who had blacked out her eyebrows and then painted blue eyebrows above, and she had a green situation happening below that, and I was just like, You go, man. It’s the idea of being confident in your choices, if it’s your hair regime or your eyebrows, to just feel good about your choices and not be afraid to try things.”
Would you call yourself a feminist? ”I think that the term has been incredibly bastardized. I am a huge advocate of empowering women—the idea of women supporting each other and supporting themselves and making strong choices that make them happy. I think often feminism gets a very narrow definition. It’s not about making shit-tons of money and running a Fortune 500 company. It’s about doing what makes you feel good as a woman, and if that’s being a stay-at-home mom, you can be just as much of a feminist that way as you can as a fighter pilot. So in that way, yeah, of course.”
So what can you tell us about the upcoming season of Girls? ”I can tell you that we’re all growing up a lot more and getting into some seriously awkward and hopefully entertaining situations. I think last season Shoshanna really had a renaissance moment, and the beginning of this season is her trying to pick up the pieces and figure it out. As this season progresses, she’s really trying to find herself and be honest about what she wants, and that was fun to play and figure out.”
photo: Getty Images
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