From the "Fun" to the "Fussy," Mandy Moore Looks Back at Her Beauty Looks From Past Roles

Shortly after A Walk To Remember came How To Deal in 2003. It brought another memorable hair moment for Moore: her first pixie cut. "It was a really big point in the script that my character cut her hair and I was really excited," said Moore. "I'd never had short hair that length before and I loved it."

She kept that haircut, along with the brunette colour that she picked up playing Jamie, as her look for years even after the movie wrapped. "I felt less encumbered, just a little freer, a little lighter," said Moore. "I was just turning 18 when I was making that movie and it felt like the perfect time in my life to embrace having a fun, super-short haircut."

Many people don't realise that Moore's natural hair colour isn't the dark brown as we're used to seeing it. That made going fully blond for the first time in The Princess Diaries in 2004 pretty easy. Instead, the biggest adjustment for Moore was getting used to the hair extensions. "My hair was always a little bit on the shorter side so I remember being completely enthralled with them," said Moore. "It really made me feel all the blonder because I had more hair."

The hairstyle also made her feel like Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, and Christina Aguilera rolled into one. "The late '90s, early 2000s, you couldn't be a pop star if you weren't blond — it was a prerequisite," she joked.

Fun hair extensions aside, if given the chance to swap places with any of her costars for a day, she'd pick Anne Hathaway, as Mia Thermopolis, for one very good reason: "What girl doesn't dream about becoming a princess, right? Complete with a tiara and the whole movie make-over magic — that's the dream to me. Sign me up immediately."

Moore's character Hilary Faye from the 2004 movie Saved! is the role she related to the least. "She was very fussy," said Moore. "There was a lot going on — she had that horrible blond mullet and lots of lip gloss. She had to be fully done before she left the house, which is not my vibe at all."

If time travel existed, she'd go back to her days working on the movie Because I Said So with Diane Keaton in 2007. Not just because the project was so fun (with Keaton involved, how could it not be?), but Moore said it was just what she needed at that point in her life.

"It closely aligned with where I was at that phase of my life with how I dressed and how I like to wear my hair," said Moore. "It was like, I get to come to set and just be a slightly more put-together version of myself, so I got the crack of that. That was a real moment in time for me."

Moore has gotten to channel many different roles over the years, but it took playing Rebecca in This Is Us to find one that she could truly relate to. "I get to live so many different iterations of the character just because I get to indulge in so many different timelines and chapters of her life," she said.

Rebecca's look when she was younger, which is supposed to take place in the '70s, is her personal favourite. "She was way more experimental with green and blue eyeshadow and tons of fun accessories and things in her hair."

The chapter when Rebecca is married and a mom is actually when Moore finds herself relating to her the most, not just with her beauty routine but the outlook on life in general. "Beauty becomes less of a priority for her and so she pairs it down a little bit, so I feel like that closely aligns with my philosophy when it comes to beauty and how I like to present myself to the world."

Moore's biggest beauty transformation on screen, or the most "involved," as she called it, has yet to be seen. She's in the middle of filming it right now for This Is Us and it takes five and a half hours in the hair and makeup trailer. "I play my character in the future 20 years," said Moore. "It's a lot of prosthetics, a full bald cap, and obviously a wig."