You may remember Paula Jai Parker’s character Joi from the classic film “Friday,” starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. Joi was Craig’s girlfriend and sported super long nails and thigh-length blond box braids. However, what you might not have known is that her iconic character was supposed to look completely different.
During a recent interview with Page Six Style, the actress revealed that she originally wanted Joi to have a twist hairstyle in the 1995 blockbuster film. Unfortunately, her on-set hairstylist wasn’t that experienced, and her work schedule proved to be a bit of an issue.
“She and I came up with the look for Joi. I booked ‘Friday’ and ‘Tales From the Hood’ at the same time, so I had to put the braids in,” the actress explained. She went on, “I requested blond twists and she didn’t know how to do [the style]. She was like, ‘Look … this is all I know how to do. So sit you’re a– still, because we got to be taking these in and out for like four months.’”
Parker said not only did the hairdo take hours to create, but they also had to uninstall them every week because of her other gig.
“Every week she had to take [them] out because I was shooting both of the movies simultaneously … My character from ‘Tales From the Hood’ wore a wig, and there was no way I was gonna be sticking all those box braids up in a wig.”
Parker said that while it may have taken her hairstylist some time to improve her technique, she was an incredible nail tech. “By profession [my hairstylist for the film] was a nail technician, so she would go to work and then she would come to set … so she would go to work and then she would come to set. She was 18 at the time, and she just graduated from cosmetology school, so I was really a guinea pig,” the 51-year-old said.
The actress also admitted to taking the infamous tiny denim shorts Joi wore in the film as a personal souvenir. “I don’t know what happened to them,” Parker said. “I think they got lost in storage. You know how it is, when you move and you forget to pay your storage fee. But somebody’s wearing them shorts out there in the world.”