Harlow Jane and Patricia Arquette.Photo:Jon Kopaloff/Getty; Dominik Bindl/Getty
Jon Kopaloff/Getty; Dominik Bindl/Getty
High Desertstar Harlow Janeisn’t afraid to go really sink her teeth into a character.
“I went to my dentist and I had him put these artificial teeth over my teeth,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively. “My mom has very specific teeth. And I was getting really into it. I cut my hair, dyed my hair. It was just so fun to me.”
Jane appears as the teenage version of Peggy in the fourth episode of season 1. In the flashback scene, young Peggy furiously confronts her father and the woman with whom he’s been having an affair — at one point, even stubbornly holding on to a car window the pair are trying to roll up while driving off.
According to Jane, every bit of that scene was real. “They wanted somebody to fake [it]. I was like, ‘No, I’m putting my arm through this and you’re going to drive away and you’re going to roll it up,’" she shares. “I had bruises for a week on my arm. But it was worth it.”
Jane shares that it was a unique challenge to get into character for the flashback. “My mom and I are very close, and so I had a pretty good understanding of how she would be or how she would maybe act at that age or in that kind of situation,” she explains. “But it was weird, because it was her through the eyes of a different character, but it was alsomycharacter.”
“I love my mom, and I just felt like I knew what her face would look like in this moment of screaming at someone,” she adds. “I love and adore the character of Peggy. I think she’s so cool. And I loved talking to the writers about, ‘What was she [like] when she was younger?’ How sick is that? It was so exciting for me.”
Gisela Schober/Getty
Despite herobvious connectionto the series protagonist, Jane wasn’t automatically guaranteed the role of young Peggy.
“I don’t think that we explicitly knew that there would be a young Peggy, but I remember I’d gone to Palm Springs with my mom. … She was meeting with the writers of the show and we had gone to this art installation,” she tells PEOPLE. “I noticed they kept taking pictures of us next to each other. I was like, ‘That’s cute, that’s fun.’ But I remember, I think it was Katie [Ford, the show’s creator], she had mentioned, ‘Well, we’re kind of playing with the idea of having a young Peggy.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ Secretly hoping. And so I told my manager about it [and] went and picked out all my best tapes.”
She continues, “My mom was very tight-lipped. She was like, ‘I don’t know if it’s going to happen or not, but maybe they’ll cast you.’ I felt very, very lucky to get that opportunity because I just loved Peggy and how punk-rock she was.”
Harlow Jane at premiere of “Murder At Yellowstone City”.Michael Tullberg/Getty
Michael Tullberg/Getty
Of course, Jane’s ability to book a role comes naturally — in addition to herGolden Globe-,Academy Award- andEmmy Award-winning mom, she has a double infusion of talent thanks to her fatherThomas Jane, 54, who’s known for starring in projects likeThe Mist,The Punisher, andHung.
Despite that natural inclination to join the family business, though, the actress admitted she initially resisted following in her parents’ footsteps.
“I definitelyrebelled against itfor as long as I could,” Jane previously told PEOPLE. “And then when I got into high school, I ended up going to this very arts-heavy boarding school, and I took a theater class. And that’s when I decided, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I cannotdo this anymore for the rest of my life.’ I can’t live a lie of wanting to be anything else.”
She confessed, “I couldn’t help but secretly love it.”
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source: people.com
