Fans of "Big Little Lies" may have noticed that Jane Chapman, the single mom played by Shailene Woodley, has an edgy new look in the second season, including bangs and a darker hair color. (Warning: Spoilers from season one of the HBO show are ahead!)
It's all about making a fresh start and reclaiming her identity after a major moment at the end of season one, Woodley said. At the end of the first season, Jane revealed that Perry, who was played by Alexander Skarsgard, was the person who raped her and fathered her 10-year-old son, Ziggy.
"I felt like maybe two or three weeks after that incident she would have woken up one morning, looked at herself in the mirror and thought, 'This isn’t who I am anymore. This monster is gone and I’m not going to let him live in me or control me any longer,'" Woodley said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. "In that moment, I feel like she took a pair of scissors and cut her bangs herself."
Not only did Jane get a new hairstyle, but Woodley said she imagines her character also spent some time cleaning out her closet, donating her old clothes and buying new outfits as a way to "reestablish and be in control of her identity again."
"I felt like that would have been her reclaiming her space, even if it was a subconscious decision," Woodley said. "Because this ghost who has been a part of her identity for so long had then left on the physical level."
Jane seems to be embracing change everywhere in her life, at least during the first three episodes of season two.
She has a new job at the Monterey Aquarium — and a potential new love interest at work.
"I thought it was really important to show a young woman who had survived rape and who had survived so many atrocities in her life — like being a young mother without very much support from anyone else around her — and yet forging through with a bravery and a courage that has helped give her son a beautiful life," Woodley said.