Rachel McAdams has proudly displayed her armpit hair in a raw photoshoot with minimal retouching.
The 44-year-old actress - who shot to fame in The Notebook and Mean Girls in the early 2000s - was photographed for Bustle's April issue, where she discussed her upcoming role in the film adaption of the novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. In the accompanying interview, McAdams opened up about her relationship with her body, and why highlighting normal bodies is so important to her.
McAdams posed in underwear and a jacket for the shoot, with her armpit hair on full display. She reportedly asked that the photos be "edited as minimally as possible" so that the magazine was showing her real appearance.
The concept is not new to McAdams, who spoke about a photoshoot for Girls Girls Girls magazine while promoting the 2017 film Disobedience - in which she posed wearing a bra, jacket, and breast pump. "I love that juxtaposition of beauty, glam, fantasy, and then truth," she recalled of the shoot, which took place shortly after she'd given birth to her first child in 2018.
As for the Bustle shoot, McAdams said: "With this shoot, I'm wearing latex underwear. But I've had two children. This is my body, and I think that's so important to reflect back out to the world. It's okay to look your best and work at it and be healthy, but that's different for everyone."
Elsewhere during the interview, McAdams revealed some advice her mother once gave her. "I'm going to give you the advice [my mother] gave me: 'Once you start, you can never stop.' And I remember rolling my eyes about that and thinking: 'Ugh, that's not the fun answer,'" she said.
"But it's so true. Life is long, shaving is intense. But if you're going to go ahead with it anyway, watch the ankle bones, the shins … Always have shaving cream. If you want to stop shaving again one day, that's okay too," the mother-of-two added.
McAdams also spoke about her role in the film adaptation of Judy Blume's hit book Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. The coming-of-age movie follows an adolescent child, Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson), who was raised in an interfaith household with a Christian mother (McAdams) and a Jewish father (Benny Safdie). The flick will follow Margaret as she navigates puberty and school.
The actress reminisced on her own awkward puberty moments, telling Bustle: "I remember being very disappointed by my first bra. I wanted leopard print, but it was more like a bandeau top with a tiny little white bow. The boys just seemed relentless."
