‘Unorthodox’ Star Shira Haas on Portraying the Hasidic Community and That Emotional Head-Shaving Scene
Will Thorne Staff WriterShira Haas has catapulted herself into the zeitgeist with her moving performance as Esther “Esty” Shapiro on Netflix’s “Unorthodox.”The series sees Esty married off to a man whom she barely knows (played by Haas’ real-life friend Amit Rahav) and forced to shave her head as Satmar tradition dictates. Haas recalled shooting that emotional haircut scene on the very first day of shooting, describing it as “one heck of a beginning” during an interview for an upcoming episode of the Variety and iHeart podcast “The Big Ticket.”“You see 20 seconds of this scene in the episode, but it took eight minutes nonstop, two cameras, one take, that’s it,” Haas told host Marc Malkin.