The actress has ditched her hair more than once for a role, and insists every woman should try it "at least once."
Joey King has a hot take about hair: "I think every woman should [shave their head] at least once in their life." The actress, who turns 23 on Saturday, opens up about career, love and beauty as the new digital cover star for Allure.
King spoke about reaching for the clippers not once, but three times for her on-screen roles, going bald most recently to play Gypsy Rose Blanchard in Hulu's The Act when she was 19. "I would absolutely do it again," she says of lopping off her locks. "I've never felt more free or more in tune with my beauty. I couldn't hide behind my hair."
As for any negative feedback from the internet, she couldn't care less.
"A lot of people made fun of me when I had my head shaved. A lot of people said really mean things. But when I had short hair, I actually felt more confident," she says. "I felt very powerful. [Their words] slid off my back. People like to insert themselves in other people's business when it doesn't actually matter. Me having a shaved head for a project really upsets you that much? I'm doing fine."
In fact, King went on to earn nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2019 for playing Blanchard. Now, she's gearing up for the big screen release of her blockbuster action project, Bullet Train, starring alongside Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock.
"When you think about the romance of Hollywood, it's an action movie with David Leitch as a director, it's a Sony picture shooting in Los Angeles [with] assassins, Brad Pitt…" says King. "I still get this giddy feeling whenever I drive by the Hollywood sign in L.A., and starring in this movie was like having that giddy feeling for months straight."
The project has been in the works for years, with King first learning she scored the role on her 21st birthday. Since then, she's released the final two installments of The Kissing Booth trilogy on Netflix, The In-Between and The Princess.
"It sounds like such a cheesy, typical thing to say, but even though life feels faster lately, more than ever I actually am taking more time to slow down and appreciate it," she tells the mag. "I find a lot of peace in sunshine and being outside. I really love spending time with my foxhound, Jesse, and, obviously, my fiancé."
King is already deep in wedding planning mode with fiancé Steven Piet, a producer and director she reportedly met while filming The Act. The couple became engaged in February of this year.
"Before we got engaged, when I kind of knew what might happen, one of my best friends was like, 'Do you have a wedding Pinterest board?' I said, 'No.' And she was like, 'Are you f**king nuts?'" says King. "I guess when I dreamed about my wedding, all this s**t was in place already. I wasn't picking [it] out, it was just there."
The vibe of her nuptials, she says, is "just really pretty."
"We work really well together. We also just really love spending time together. So getting to do something where we're both doing what we love and we get to hang out with each other, [that's] the best," King notes of her relationship. "I think he's so talented. He thinks the same about me. We really love just being able to put our minds together."
Bullet Train hits theaters on Aug. 5.
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