Transformation

Most male baby boomers fondly remember Jennifer Jason Leigh's breakout role in the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. After all, it was this coming-of-age movie that exposed (no pun intended) both Leigh's and her longtime friend Phoebe Cates's best (ahem) assets. Female viewers, however, might look back at her role 10 years later as a psychotic roommate in Single White Female as her tour de force. In either case she can hardly be thought of as the girl next door—which is exactly the point. Her filmography, just as her look, has been diverse and a bit offbeat. Not your typical shiny blond California girl, the L.A. native has a slightly East Coast prep-school aura—full, light brown hair, a heavy brow and pale, blush-accented complexion. But now, at 43, she seems to have come into her own, and in her latest film, The Jacket, her look is well suited to her role as a doctor in an asylum—highlighted light brown shoulder-length wavy locks with a slip of sexy bang. And it's a little off-key for a woman who once told In Style, "I almost never care about what I look like when I'm acting."

1983: Leigh, a year after her Fast Times breakthrough