Crafting Characters and Building Trust: Jill Crosby’s Two Decades with Allison Janney

via allisonbjanney.com - December 1, 2025

For over two decades, hairstylist and wig maker Jill Crosby has been one of the creative forces behind some of Allison Janney’s most memorable on-screen transformations. From The West Wing to Palm Royale, their long-standing collaboration has shaped Allison’s characters, elevated her storytelling, and built a rare, enduring partnership. In an exclusive conversation with allisonbjanney.com, Jill opens up about her design process, the art of building Allison’s characters through hair, and the extraordinary trust at the heart of their work together.

Q: Thanks for chatting today, Jill! Let’s start by going down memory lane. How did you first come to work with Allison Janney? 

I came on as the Department Head of The West Wing during Season 5. Department-heading was new for me at the time. I remember when I got there, the cast was slightly hungry for a new person. There was a changing of the guard because the people who were there before were make-up men and very old-school. When I arrived, the female cast members waited to be in my chair. Janel [Moloney] and Allison were definitely cued up to come directly to me.

Allison and I clicked right out of the gate. She’s kind, she’s welcoming, she’s not a diva in any way. She warms you up to bring your best forward. When you meet somebody like that as an artist, it’s like putting a key in an ignition. Something really clicked.

Q: What makes working with Allison creatively special?

There’s a foundational true love for who each other is, but also a knowing that we are working with some of the best. I’ve always said to her, “You were born to do what you do.” I stand on the set and watch what happens in real time. I can feel it when she drops in. It’s a gift to watch an artist do that. We activate each other.

Q: You’ve created looks for Allison across film, television, and stage. What is your collaborative process?

We’ve developed a shorthand over the years. I read the script, we talk about it and get a vibe for the character. I’ll ask how Allison feels about the character and what she sees. She mirrors those questions back to me, and in that prequel to even designing, we conceptualize who the character is. If there are any breakout moments, I try to imbue the character with them.

For Allison’s role [as a biker] in the 2020 indie film To Leslie, for example, we did long hair with scrunchies in threes or braids with ponytails knotted all the way down. I wanted her to look real, like someone who naturally styled herself like that. You never want to over-engineer any wig.

Q: You have deep experience in period work and wig making. What is your approach?

At the University of Cincinnati, I studied Theater Design & Production with a minor in Wig Making, so I was trained in character development. I research the character and the period itself. I sometimes like to go back and find a person in time to pivot off, instead of the general Pinterest-board approach.

I love to build my own hairpieces. It’s like putting frosting on a cake. For Palm Royale, I made specific pieces inspired by photos of people like Rita Moreno and Carmen Miranda. It’s rewarding when I can land that aesthetic along with other things I like to do creatively, like jewelry and ceramics. I love it when I get to pull that into hairstyling.

Q: Evelyn Rollins in Palm Royale immediately became an iconic Janney character. How did her look come together?

Before we had the hair, we really didn’t have that character. Evelyn is such a caricature-driven role. It’s hard to see her through-line without adding the elements of the 1960s visually. In our camera tests, it really was a matter of Allison integrating into Evelyn visually. Her body language changes. She finds the mirror and the lens in a new way. The wigs and the hair give her wings.

With Evelyn being in the 1960s, it was very typical for women to have hairpieces like that. I was born in the 1960s, and I remember my grandmother's Styrofoam heads all lined up with hairpieces. It really was a time that women incorporated pastiches and chignons and all kinds of hair accoutrements as an accessory. Hair designers back then were throwing down with these things! [laughs]

So, it’s not my creation so much as it is me piggybacking on what was happening back then and really kind of amplifying it because of the way Evelyn ‘peacocks’. One of the ways that she peacocks is not just at the dress boutique, but with her hair. We haven’t seen her go to their hair salon to get her hair done, but I want you to presume that she does. She’s not going to do that herself. But we’ve never met Evelyn’s hairdresser on the show. I should put in a call!

Q: What was your most challenging Palm Royale / Evelyn Rollins hair look yet?

The final episode of Season 1 with the massive Beach Ball hair look. That was a lot. I built all of that. I used blue fabric from the dress and I braided it and added seashells, clams and pearls in her hair to match the sea. That was five or six wigs and all kinds of stuffing. It was ten days of shooting, and I had to match it and keep it super consistent each day. There was a special way to wrap it and hold all that weight, and that was not something I could be rushed with. So that was a major challenge, but we pulled it off!

 For the bridal look in Season 2, that was also multiple wigs and stuffing. And I actually rouched a headband and embellished it. I love working with [costumer] Alix Friedberg because she’s someone who says, “Yes, go get it!” When you’re working with people who high-five each other creatively, lots of magic can happen.

Q: How does Allison handle the physical process of wearing a wig? 

When I was in college, my wig teacher put us in wigs. She put us through the works because she wanted us to understand what it was that we were doing to an actor and how it made them feel.  It trained us to be intuitive to work with someone in a certain way. My nickname for Allison is “Wig Beast”. If I put her in five wigs, I have to understand how five wigs feel on her head ten hours later. Allison tolerates a lot. She’s a very unique actor because she understands the pay off. She’s willing to go for the reward. Just being on set as a person for twelve hours as a person is an endurance sport. Put yourself in a corseted six-layer costume with three wigs on your head and sit in a trailer for five hours waiting for them to call you to set. It’s like putting a racehorse in a stall and not letting them run. 

Q: You’ve worked with stage lace and film lace. What are the different approaches?

Stage lace is much coarser and more durable because it doesn’t have to disappear. Film lace absolutely has to vanish. A wig can cost $10–$20K, and it has to be maintained properly or it won’t last. For example, with [action film] Lou, for the pick-ups I had to re-ventilate Allison’s wig. I did not build the original wig, but when we did the pick-ups, the wigs were trashed, so I had to re-front them and rebuild them. That was a brutal shoot, physically, on the wigs. Wig maintenance is an added layer and a really big job I don’t think people truly understand.

On the other hand, for [8-year CBS sitcom] Mom, a new wig only had to be made for Allison about every two years. She wasn’t out in rainstorms, and also sometimes it just depended on what season it was, and what Allison’s real-life hair looked like. If she was a blonde, I had to have a full front wig. If she was a brunette, I could have what’s called a 7/8th wig, which meant that I could use her own little edges of hair. It just depended on what was happening underneath.  There were a lot of people who didn’t know until Mom Season 6 that she was wearing a wig. That’s a compliment because I don’t want people to know she’s wearing a wig. I want it to look and move like real hair. 

Q: Can you talk about creating Allison’s hair looks for personal appearances, red carpets and photoshoots? 

Films are different than red carpet and red carpet is different than editorial. When I do Allison for the carpet, she’s out of my control as soon as I’m done. Her hair has to stay, and it has to present well. You can’t do super editorial hair for a red carpet, because it won’t read. But for a photoshoot on set, I can beat the hair up and get someone like Robert Ascroft to shoot it and it will look like magic. There aren’t a lot of people who cross those worlds like I do. I was a hairdresser for 7 years before I got into the business. I love fashion, editorial, and print. I didn’t want to give it up for film work. But you do have to reformat your brain for all of these different things.

Q: What does a typical day look like for you and Allison on set?

We try to work very fast. With wigs especially, we work in six-minute increments because every minute costs production money. If we say we need 45 minutes, we mean it. Allison doesn’t want to spend eight hours doing anything, so over the years I’ve learned how to get her ready efficiently.

Hair holds energy. I’m a huge energy person and working with the crown chakra is part of my job. One of the things I try to bring to Allison is grounding – and I always try to anchor her and bring calm, balanced energy.

Q: How would you describe your long-term creative partnership with Allison?

Blessed is the word I’d use. Her loyalty and the bond we’ve formed over the years have reshaped my life in a way that is extraordinary. Structurally she is very different than all my other clients. I almost don’t consider her a client but someone I walk the road with, and we get to do our thing together. I might be of service to her, but let’s not be mistaken; she has also been very much of service to me.

Q: Thank you so much for chatting, Jill! Any final thoughts?

I still remember the first time Allison sat in my chair. It’s funny because I’ve seen her sit in the chair thousands of times since then...but she is still the same Allison who sat in my chair that very first time. *