After seeing A Star Is Born for the first time (because you'll probably see it twice), you might leave the theater, get in your car, decide to adopt a labradoodle puppy, and listen to the film's soundtrack on repeat until Bradley Cooper's husky drawl is burned into your brain. We get it: It's hard to say goodbye to Ally and Maine after the final credits roll — unless, of course, you're the actors playing them.
Both Gaga and Cooper, who underwent dramatic physical transformations for the Hollywood reboot, wanted to shed their characters' skin immediately after filming. For Gaga, that meant uncovering her many tattoos, putting her makeup back on, and dyeing her hair back to blonde. "When her last scene was done, she cut her hair, bleached it, and came back [to set] three or four hours later and looked like Gaga again," hair department head Lori McCoy-Bell tells Refinery29.
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For Cooper, it meant ending his daily spray tan sessions, and chopping off his greasy bob. "Pre-production took a year, so he had all the time to get his hair long," McCoy-Bell says. "As soon as he knew there wouldn't be any reshoots, he cut it all off," she says.
It's not totally unusual for an actor to ditch every last physical detail of their character, especially when that character was both physically and emotionally taxing to play. In fact, that's partially why Gaga changed her hair the second she knew Ally's job was done. During an appearance on The Ellen Show in September, host Ellen DeGeneres asked if it was hard for Gaga to let go of Ally. "Yes," Gaga replied. "There is some tremendous emotion and tragedy, so I wanted to get her out."
Sure, everyone praises them for their Oscar-worthy acting, their music, and PETA-friendly casting, but perhaps Gaga and Cooper's greatest accomplishment post-A Star Is Born is giving a whole new meaning to the "breakup cut".