Regina Hall: Let’s Stop Tying a Woman’s Worth to Her Beauty

Regina Hall is obsessed with hair and makeup—for good reason. “It’s really how I start,” she says of her process as an actor. “When I read a script, I always visualize what the character looks like and how she presents herself. Because how you present yourself says a lot about how you’re received and how you see yourself. For me, it’s kind of my favorite part.”

Take Breaking News in Yuba County, which came out in February. As a small-town detective, Hall relished her character’s crazy mullet-style wig. “We colored just the front because she doesn’t care about the back,” she says with a laugh. “It was so great!” 

Then there’s her upcoming role in Hulu’s much-anticipated series Nine Perfect Strangers. “She’s very bare as far as hair and makeup, because she hasn’t prioritized herself for a long time,” explains Hall, who wore a wig to play the role of Carmel, but when the series relocated to Australia from Los Angeles due to the pandemic, the humidity occasionally got the best of it. “We were like, ‘Oh, she grows!’” Hall jokes of her hair. 

And then there’s Dawn Towner, Hall’s character in Showtime’s 1980s-set Black Monday. When season three picks up (premiering this Sunday, May 23), Dawn is in prison and looking “rough,” Hall says. “There’s still effort, but nothing like her typical glam.”

As for her real-life look during the pandemic, the 50-year-old jokes it’s not going well: “It’s just sweats and a topknot—very simple, but actually very nice. I just need to get a pedicure going again.” 

Self-deprecating humor aside, Hall has an abundance of great skin-care secrets that she was more than happy to share with us. Time for another round of Glamour‘s Big Beauty Questions!

Glamour: What is one beauty rule that you swear by?

Regina Hall: Starting with the inside. So for me, that means a bunch of water and bone broth. I try to eat bone broth at least four times a week because it has a lot of collagen in it. Sometimes it’s turkey and lamb or chicken or beef, or even seaweed and mushroom. All you need is a cup.

What is one beauty rule you think is B.S.?

Maybe these weird chin and neck exercises my mom did. She would move her chin up and down and say, “This will save your neck!” But I was like, “Mom, nothing saves the neck but the doctor!” I’m sure it helps, and her thing was very much about keeping the neck moisturized, but otherwise I was like, “I don’t know, Mommy!”