In some cases, the world of the story dictates a character’s look (you can’t get a haircut in a post-apocalyptic wasteland). From Rick Grimes to Steve Harrington, these TV characters completely changed their appearance throughout their series.
Rick Grimes
The Walking Dead
Without access to toiletries and grooming equipment, everyone in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of The Walking Dead changed their appearance over the years. Carl grew his hair out long and became inseparable from his dad’s sheriff’s hat. Judith grew up and became a badass armed with a kid-sized katana. But no one changed more than our protagonist, Rick Grimes.
When we met Rick in the pilot episode, he had a bit of a five o’clock shadow (owing to the coma) and a short, professional haircut. He even managed to get a shave so he looked sharp before heading out to find his wife and son in Atlanta. But once the group left their camp and headed out into the wasteland, he started growing it out.
In the early seasons, Rick gradually grew out a big, thick beard and long, luscious hair. When they got taken into Alexandria and suddenly had access to running water and electricity, Rick was able to cut his hair and trim his beard. But as the series went on, he started growing it out again. He had a thick, lustrous gray beard by the time Andrew Lincoln left the show.
Sansa Stark
Game Of Thrones
Game of Thrones’ Sansa Stark went through a thematic transformation. Sophie Turner looked more or less the same when the series ended as she did when it began, but the character was a completely different person. She’d gone from being a brightly dressed noble girl, highlighting her naivety through vibrant colors, to a battle-hardened leader dressed in dark clothes to reflect her newfound world-weariness.
Steve Harrington
Stranger Things
Just about every young actor in Stranger Things looked very different by the end, because they aged a decade between the first and final seasons. When the series began, they were all kids, and by the time it ended, they were all adults. But despite their physical changes, the characters all maintained more or less the same look.
Eleven tried out various different hairstyles throughout the series, but she ended up back in a wetsuit with short hair in the series finale to bring it all full circle. Steve Harrington is the only one who really changed his look, and it was visually symbolic of his personal growth. In season 1, Steve is a typical douchey ‘80s bully, and he dressed as such, with styled hair and a letterman jacket.
But over the course of the series, Steve evolved from a stereotypical bully into more of a protective mentor to the kids — especially Dustin. When he took over as the group mom, his style became a lot more practical and less flashy and obnoxious, reflecting the character himself.
Michael Scott
The Office
The wardrobe and hairstyling people on The Office deliberately made Michael Scott look worse in season 1, with sunken eyes and slicked-back hair. Steve Carell has an innate warmth and likability that didn’t gel with Michael as he was originally written. In season 1, Michael was based more directly on his British counterpart, David Brent, who was always presented as awkward and pathetic and hated by his staff.
After the mixed response to the first season, the writers figured out what was wrong. American audiences didn’t want to laugh at the underdog; they wanted to root for him. So, they started making Michael’s employees a lot nicer to him, and as they started treating Michael better, they started making him look better, too. They allowed Carell’s warmth to shine through.
And the evolution of Michael’s appearance didn’t stop there. Carell left the series in season 7, but he famously came back for a cameo appearance in the series finale, where we find out how his life with Holly is going. When he returned in the finale, the hair and makeup team aged up Carell with gray hair and a more distinguished elder-statesman look.
Chloe O’Brian
24
When Chloe O’Brian was first introduced in 24, she was dressed as a typical data analyst glued to her desk. She wore professional, practical clothes, well-suited to spending all day and night in front of a computer screen. But as the series went on and Chloe became essentially Jack Bauer’s sidekick, they gave her a style of her own, more akin to the Lisbeth Salander goth hacker archetype.
Jesse Pinkman
Breaking Bad
Both of the main characters in Breaking Bad went through a lot of physical changes throughout the series. The show takes place over about two years, and they were the two most transformative years in Walter White and Jesse Pinkman’s lives. Walt, of course, was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the series, so he quickly lost his hair to chemotherapy.
But Walt also grew his mustache into a goatee, and while he was in hiding in New Hampshire, he grew his hair back and grew his facial hair into a full beard. But it was ultimately still the same Walt under his new disheveled look. Jesse, on the other hand, is a totally different person by the end of the series.
Throughout Breaking Bad’s five seasons, as Jesse became more mature and jaded, and suffered one traumatic event after another, he completely changed his wardrobe, he completely changed his hair and beard, and after an unfortunate bout of meth-cooking slavery, he took on a very grizzled look. Over the course of the series, Jesse grew from a boy into a man.
Bran Stark
Game Of Thrones
Sansa isn’t the only character on Game of Thrones who went through a massive transformation throughout the series. Her younger brother, Bran, changed a lot, too. Isaac Hempstead Wright, the young actor who played Bran, grew up from a child into an adult as the show went on. But the changes didn’t stop there; the character adopted a totally different expression as he got older and wiser.
Rickety Cricket
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Rickety Cricket has arguably gone through a bigger physical transformation than any other character in TV history. When we first met Cricket, he was a respectable Catholic priest who came down to Paddy’s Pub to verify an obviously fraudulent miracle. His high school crush, Sweet Dee, convinced him to renounce his priesthood, and it was all downhill from there.
After leaving the church behind, Cricket became homeless. While living on the street, he’s gotten hooked on and off various different drugs, he’s had a surprisingly sweet romance with a stray dog, and his face has been horrifically burned. Every time we see Cricket, another horrible thing has happened to his body — it’s sort of a macabre running joke.
Cricket isn’t the only character from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia who’s undergone a massive transformation. Mac gained a lot of weight for one season, then got ripped for another season. But he hasn’t changed as much as Cricket. Hopefully, we haven’t seen Cricket’s last season, and he’ll be back on It’s Always Sunny for future episodes, but I’m not sure how much worse it could get for him.