Demi Moore has never shied away from changing her hair for her roles. From her crimped ’80s style in St. Elmo’s Fire to her famous pixie cut in Ghost and her shaved head for G.I. Jane, Moore has made bold choices throughout her career. Now, the 62-year-old actress, who appears on the cover of PEOPLE’s World’s Most Beautiful issue, has settled into her signature long brunette locks.
“I have grown quite attached to my hair,” Moore tells PEOPLE. “Especially after having no hair at one point.”
Moore, who shares three daughters—Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah—with ex-husband Bruce Willis, recalled her spontaneous decision to cut her hair before filming Ghost. She had long hair when she was cast, but during a trip to Paris, she cut it short after carrying around a photo of Isabella Rossellini.
“I was a first-time mother and felt I needed a change,” she says. “It wasn’t meant to shock anyone; it just felt right.”
After Ghost, Moore experimented further by dyeing her hair blonde for The Butcher’s Wife in 1991. “It was a fun time to have blond hair,” she says. “That period was all about experimenting and discovering who I was.” However, she quickly learned that bleaching damaged her hair. “It was fun while it lasted,” she adds.
In 1997, Moore shaved her head to play Lieutenant Jordan O’Neill in G.I. Jane. Her daughters admired her bold move, though they chose to get shorter cuts instead of buzzing their hair.
Today, Moore feels closely connected to her long hair and admits she is hesitant to cut it again. “There’s energy in hair,” she explains. “But I never like to say never.”
One change she would welcome, however, is going gray. “Oh, 100%,” Moore says. “I think women with striking gray hair, especially when it’s long, look incredible.” Though she only began Coloring her hair at 55, she jokes that her few gray strands make her hair look murky rather than silver.
Still, Moore laughs about the growing number of grays. “It’s more than it used to be,” she says. She also notes that her great-grandmother on her mother’s side never had gray hair and never cut it.
