Allie Hayes’ hair was one of the notable book-to-screen changes in Off Campus — and there’s a reason for that.
“Her skin tones factored into it because once you start changing those hair colors, the skin tones change,” series hairstylist Debra Wiebe told Elite Daily in an interview published Wednesday, June 3, referring to actress Mika Abdalla, who brings Allie to life onscreen. “We enhanced the color to make it a bit more golden. Her highlights had more of a golden blonde tint, where Stephen [Kalyn]’s was lighter and more pastel.”
Off Campus is adapted from Elle Kennedy’s bestselling hockey romance series of the same name, in which Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis and love interest Allie Hayes both have blonde locks. In the Prime Video adaptation, Dean and Allie are portrayed by Kalyn, 28, and Abdalla, 26, respectively.
Much like his book counterpart, Kalyn’s Dean had a bleached ‘do. Abdalla, meanwhile, kept her naturally dark tresses for the role.
“Sometimes those conversations go on before I’m in the room. When producers are casting, they put the two actors beside each other and decide on the look,” Wiebe told the outlet. “Then, we all had a conversation of, ‘Can we lighten her hair just a bit?’”
For Wiebe, giving Abdalla blonde highlights helped nod to the literary inspiration and distinguish the character from her BFF Hannah Wells (Ella Bright).
Off Campus season 1 highlighted Hannah’s love story with Dean’s hockey teammate Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli). Abdalla and Kalyn will take the reins in the already renewed season 2, after fans got a peek at their journey at the end of the first season.
“I’m just really looking forward to digging deeper into who Allie and Dean are,” Abdalla exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of last month’s premiere. “They both, kind of, have these fronts, these personas that are hard to kind of crack through. They are kind of stereotypes of themselves. But in the books, as we know, there’s so much beneath the surface of Dean, and there’s so much beneath the surface of Allie.”
She continued at the time, “When it is time for our season, I’m excited to dig emotionally into that a little bit more, because, you know, we see Allie and Dean as their exteriors a lot in season 1. While that is fun, and they are super fun characters to play, I think as actors, selfishly, both of us are really excited to, kind of, like, get psychological.”
Off Campus season 1 is currently streaming on Prime Video, while season 2 recently started production.
