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A Look at Keri Russell’s Evolution From a Teen Idol to a Hollywood Heavyweight

Nicole Villeneuve

Nicole is an entertainment and lifestyle writer covering pop culture, news, and cool women doing cool things. She likes yard sales, MTV's Teen Mom, and putting too many memes in the group chat. She lives in Toronto.

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Sep 22, 2016

A Look at Keri Russell’s Evolution From a Teen Idol to a Hollywood Heavyweight

Keri Russell’s been in the game longer than you might have realized. Starting out as a kid on the Mickey Mouse Club and filling sporadic pre-teen film roles, she broke out as the namesake of the hit ’90s series Felicity.

For a while it seemed her hair might have been the bigger star; much ado was made when she chopped her trademark ringlets off and ratings for the show dropped.

(Photo via Brenda Chase/Getty)

It’s true — the hair was missed very much.

(Photo via Brenda Chase/Getty)

The close crop didn’t last long, and it wasn’t long (get it?) before she started growing the locks back out.

(Image via Giphy)

There they are!

(Photo via Chris Weeks/Getty)

But just when the hair was long again, those curls took a break. If we had to guess, we’d say this was right around the consumer ceramic straightener boom of the mid-aughts. Game recognize game.

(Photo via Getty Images)

You don’t know how good it feels to run your hands through your hair till you’ve gone from curly to straight.

(Photo via J. Emilio Flores/Getty)

Of course, she wouldn’t be Keri without those curls, so it was nice to see her with her natural look every now and then.(Image via Giphy)

Then she started to experiment with a wavier look.

(Photo via Matthew Peyton/Getty)

And BOOM. The Mission Impossible days of 2006 were the start of her now beloved simple sophistication.

(Photo via Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

It’s not often she went back to a heavily styled look like this one she wore to the premiere of Disney’s Bedtime Stories in 2008.

(Photo via Peter Kramer/Getty Images)

We weathered a quick regression into a younger look during the Running Wilde days.

(Photo via Michael Buckner/Getty)

And were rewarded with a hard turn back into sleek and understated territory.

(Photo via Frazer Harrison/Getty)

DOESN’T IT FEEL GOOD TO LOOK THIS GOOD?

(Photo via Jason Kempin/Getty)

She hasn’t looked back since her red carpet looks started mirroring her Americans looks.

(Image via Giphy)

Then, Keri got on board with the ombre, wavy trend of the past couple of years.

(Photo via Frederick M. Brown/Getty)

No one does natural better.

(Photo via Valerie Macon/Getty)

One look at Keri at this year’s Emmys is enough to make us sit back and appreciate her effortlessly chic evolution to one of Hollywood’s brightest stars.