TV

As she tackled the role of the driven, Elizabeth Keen on season one of The Blacklist, Megan Boone underwent a drastic transformation every day.  Her sassy, short pixie cut was regularly tucked up into a cascading brown wig. Though she says she hoped the longer locks would help her character look younger and perhaps, more …

Published on November 28, 2020

As she tackled the role of the driven, Elizabeth Keen on season one of The Blacklist, Megan Boone underwent a drastic transformation every day.  Her sassy, short pixie cut was regularly tucked up into a cascading brown wig. Though she says she hoped the longer locks would help her character look younger and perhaps, more naive, it is the signature look which fans have grown to embrace and expect on Keen. 

Though some have called her hair a “distraction” others have applauded the star’s longer look for her character. 

Boone had some claim to fame before she was Elizabeth Keen

Before she landed the role of Elizabeth Keen on the popular NBC crime drama The Blacklist, Boone was no stranger to TV crime shows. IMDb credits Boone with seven episodes of Law and Order: LA between 2010 and 2011. She also has two episodes of Blue Bloods under her belt. Though, when hired she wasn’t truly famous. The producers took a risk in hiring a little known actor to play the stoic and sometimes quite dark, Agent Keen. 

Boone knocks it out of the park with her portrayal of Keen and shows herself to be truly multifaceted with a few movie credits and even production and directing on her resume. One of her tricks though, when she wants to put on a different hat and try something new is to actually, put on a different hat, or in this case: a wig. 

The hair that makes the girl

Fans have lots of mixed feelings about the wig worn by Boone throughout season one. In fact, entire Reddit threads have been dedicated to the discussion of her hair. Generally, the consensus is that though fans like longer hair for Keen, the wig wasn’t always great looking on the actor.  Viewers also noticed that it didn’t always stay put during some of her more active scenes. 

Boone doesn’t pretend to love the wig or say that the wig is super comfortable. She doesn’t claim that it was her favorite part of her character’s costume either. She does, however, find that it helped her to leave work at work. 

“I find it to be a nice ritual at the end of the day,” Boone tells Today’s  Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. She enjoys having the ability to take off the wig, wipe off her make-up, and head for home as she’s transformed back into herself. In fact, she notes that lots of character actors do similar things.  When Kotb and Gifford asked the star if she liked the wig though, she changed the subject by defending the decision. Apparently, according to Boone, British actors use wigs a lot to change their looks and she doesn’t find it odd.

The Blacklist is set to air Season 8

Since season 7 of The Blacklist had to halt production in early 2020, the season finale had to be reworked. In an unprecedented pivot, USA Today reports that the production team decided to partially animate their final episode of the season, leaving a few episodes unused.

The unused episodes of Season 7 started airing this November with the rest of Season 8 of The Blacklist  scheduled to return to television in 2021. Fans are dying to see how this season will play out. Not surprisingly, there has also been discussion about what the length of agent Keen’s hair should be.  If Boone were to cut her hair short again fans are left wondering if that would inspire the show’s creators to put the actor back into the controversial wig. 

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