In 2014, Michael Kriston, the head of the hair department, told Vanity Fair, “This young woman is the sister of a very good friend of Leo DiCaprio’s, and he told her about this. She was not an actress. She was tall, attractive, and terrified! I mean, when she finally got involved and showed up and everything, we actually had a person who does background as a standby, in case she freaked out.”
He trained P.J. to cut her hair, but the actor “was terrified himself, because he did not want to hurt her.”
The over-the-top scene made the experience even more overwhelming for Narasha. Michael said, “You also have to understand that with this poor girl, in this room while she was getting her head shaved, were 250 men screaming, there were 40 strippers in various states of undress, plus a marching band in their underwear.
…And then what happened is that we did the one side, and then we broke for lunch! And so we didn’t do the rest of it until after lunch, so she literally walked around with a baseball hat on with half her head shaved. The great thing is, [director Martin Scorsese] came out and everybody congratulated her — because, like I said, she was not an actress. And they got their shot! I know that Marty was very happy.”
When the scene was over, he offered her a wig he’d set aside for her, but she “was cool” with simply letting him neaten up the cut.
