Inside The Dallas Buyers Club: 'Jared Leto begged us to make him look prettier'

Few ladies can boast that they have run their fingers through Matthew McConaughey or Jared Leto's locks.

Hair-stylist Adruitha Lee has had her hands on most of Hollywood's hottest stars in her incredible career, culminating in winning an Oscar alongside make-up artist Robin Mathews for their work on The Dallas Buyers Club, the powerful real-life tale of HIV and AIDS sufferers in the mid-1980s. Even more incredibly, Adrutha put her career on hold to raise her son and get him through college before she followed her dreams to Tinsel Town.

Has her win sunk in yet?

“Not really. It just seems crazy, I still don’t believe it. I'm just a small town girl from the south.”

Although much of her triumphant night remains a blur, certain memories stick in her mind.

“When my name was announced Angelina Jolie got out of her seat and held out her arms to me, it was so special. 

“When I stood on the stage and looked at all those stars in the first two rows at the Oscars, I had worked with every single one of them. I’m not bragging, I was just in awe. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyongo, Charlize Theron, Nicolas Hoult.. They were all grinning from ear to ear for me.”

Spending so much time alone with them on set, Adruitha gets to see a different side to many stars.

“Once you touch somebody it becomes personal. And when they sit down in the chair, with some actors there’s a bond right away. Angelina is a friend now and she has always treated me so well. She is so sweet and so kind. I'll be working on her next film.”

We can't resist asking if she has also met Angelina's hubby Brad Pitt.

"Oh yes. He is so sweet and funny. But when I first saw Brad I was like, ‘Oh my God’. Sometimes you get a little weak-kneed. I told him later and he laughed."

Of course, Adrutha also spent time up close and personal with two more of Hollywood's most beautiful leading men during the shoot of The Dallas Buyers Club.

She didn't once see Jared Leto out of character.

"The first time I met Jared he came in as his character Rayon and I never saw him as a man until a luncheon just before the Oscars. He gave me a hug and spoke to me and I was like, 'Oh my God that’s the first time I heard your real voice'.

"During the shoot he would wander into our trailer and just say in that high voice, 'Darlin', can you fix my nails?' He really was Rayon."

Adruitha laughs when she remembers how they clashed over Rayon's wigs. Wigs, mind you, that she only had a budget of "a few hundred dollars" to create and style with.

"The director wanted this one wig to look worse, more worn and I just couldn't get it right. Finally, I got mad, ran outside and threw it down on the gravel and ran over it with my car! I didn’t tell anyone what I’d done, but they loved it.

"Except Jared. He never liked it. He always wanted to look prettier. He kept saying none of his drag queen friends would never wear something like that and I was like, ‘Yeah, but you’re not a drag queen'.”

Adruitha had a different relationship with the film's other Oscar-winning star, Mathew McConaughey. Although he was suffering from losing a shocking amount of weight to play the film's lead, real-life AIDS victim Ron Woodroof, there was still time for laughter and wine.

"On the first day we started there was no money yet and Matthew was like, 'I haven’t lost all this weight for nothing. The train is leaving the station, if you want on it. Let’s go!'

"But at the end of each week we’d work into the night, and then Matthew would come in and I’d fix his hair. There’d be a bottle of something and he’d relax and we’d laugh and have fun. Although the poor guy was always starving so he couldn't drink much. Can you believe my life sometimes? The last one evening we spent together we knew we’d all made something special together."

From a small town in Tennessee, Adruitha readily admits that, sometimes, even she can't believe how her life has turned out.

“I had always wanted to work in Hollywood, but I was a very young mother and I focused on getting my son into college. As soon as I could, I opened a salon in Nashville and began to look after some country music stars and then one day I headed to California.

"It's been a wild ride since then. I just kept trying. It might have seemed like an impossible dream but nobody ever told me that you can’t do this. All through my life I always preferred to aim high and not hold myself back.”

Riding high on her Oscar success, Adruitha barely has time to reflect on all she has achieved. Although it almost got her into trouble with the law recently.

"The day after the Oscars I flew out to do my next film. Of course my bags set off the airport alarms. I whispered to the security girl, ‘My Oscar’s in there’ and she looked at me and grinned.”

After winning an Oscar, what more could she possibly want from life?

"Well, just before The Dallas Buyers Club I had done 12 Years a Slave and I was like “Oh my god, I need to do a romantic comedy next, please! I need a good laugh.”

The Dallas Buyers Club is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.