"Stars are just like us!"

I hate getting my hair cut. I always have. That's why I had that down-to-my-waist hair until I was 15.

My hair is a little shorter now, but I still only get it cut twice a year.

I was at the hair salon waiting for my semi-annual appointment and the receptionist offered me some magazines while I waited. I expected her to bring O Magazine or something where I could compare the 14 different types of asymmetrical bob cuts I was never going to get.

She brought me People Magazine and Us Weekly.

I reacted as if she had handed me a dead fish.

It's been decades since I've touched those kinds of magazines. As an actor that used to dodge reporters and photographers, I know what it's like to be on the other side of that lens. I know how it feels to be a hunted animal. In fact, it's one of the main reasons that I left my career; I couldn't handle the fact that the better I was at my job, the less right I had to a normal life.

But since my cell battery had died and my hairdresser was up to his elbows in hair dye goop that he was still putting on his previous client, I set aside my moral compass and flipped through Us Weekly.

This page stood out to me.

It caught my eye because this is clearly not something that they believe. These magazines are not really saying that famous people are just like everyone else. The entire magazine is based around the fact that they are inherently different from regular people.

If your dental hygienist went out to buy kale, would that be photo worthy? Would there be an article about how the teller from the bank likes a certain brand of lip gloss? Would that sell magazines?

Of course not. But why do we really care about those mundane details, just because those people happen to work in film? Actors are not better or smarter or more talented or even prettier (thank you, Photoshop) than anyone else in the world.

Tigerbeat used to want to know about my favorite foods and what music I liked. These days, that information is no longer of general public interest - and I'm quite grateful for that. But I'm not fundamentally any different than I was in the 90s, I just changed my job.

So, honestly. Why does this stuff matter?

I never figured out the answer to that question because I had to get my hair shampooed.

But it's still worth asking.

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