Did Mia Healey From The Wilds Really Shave Her Head?
On a show like "The Wilds," what kind of haircut a character has is pretty much the least of their worries. When one is stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things like beauty take a back seat. That is, of course, barring any plot-related character development that said haircut displays. If a personal aesthetic is meant to represent something for the character, then it should be of interest to viewers, even if the hair itself is secondary to the story's main conflict.
Thankfully, when it comes to Shelby Goodkind (Mia Healey), her mid-survival scenario haircut definitely had some significance to the character and her development across the Amazon Prime original series. However, that's not really what people were wondering when Shelby shaved her head in Episode 8. Instead, most viewers were wondering a pretty obvious behind-the-scenes question, did Mia Healey shave her head for the show?
Healey may not have shaved her head, but she was willing to
To make the answer to this question incredibly short, no. Mia Healey didn't actually shave her head. Instead, she used a traditional bald cap along with other cosmetics to hide her real hair and make her appear buzzed. However, Healey recently revealed in an interview with Collider that she definitely would have shaved if Amazon had asked.
"If they wanted me to shave my head for Season 2 for the whole time, I would do it," Healey said. In order to achieve the look, Healey revealed that "...they flew me to Sydney to do a cast over my head. I actually have a photo of it on my Instagram. And that's something that was really hard for me because it's kind of claustrophobic ...Then they made a bald cap from that shape of my head and then added each individual hair onto it."
From there, Healey spent over four hours in the makeup chair as makeup artists blended the bald cap to her skin, giving it the appearance of a real buzz cut. Similarly, Healey also had to tangle with two sets of false teeth since Shelby wears dentures to cover up her missing teeth. Switching these out caused plenty of minor stops in shooting, but eventually, Healey became a pro at replacing her different dentures for every shot. Like the bald cap, it may have been intensive, but it shows admirable dedication.