'Mare of Easttown' hairstylist says he was told to give everybody bed hair: 'I had to ride with that'

• "Mare of Easttown" hairstylist Lawrence Davis told Insider his key rule for styling it: bed hair.
• Davis said when he signed onto the project, he was told "bed hair for everyone."
• Kate Winslet, who leads the show, has spoken about the importance of her character's realistic look.

From the first episode of "Mare of Easttown," HBO's new limited series, it's clear the show is a slight departure from anything American audiences have seen before.

Yes, the show is a detective story. In this case, a 17-year-old mom is murdered and left naked on a quarry of rocks in the middle of a Pennsylvanian waterfall. But unlike HBO's other big-budget, star-driven murder-mystery shows like "Big Little Lies" or "The Undoing," "Mare" is an unrelentingly bleak story set against an equally bleak backdrop. There are no beautiful gowns or modern mansions with jaw-dropping vistas to gloss over the brutality of the central murder.

One of the show's key aesthetic architects was hairstylist Lawrence Davis, who helped craft each character's distinct look. And he told Insider that his number one goal onset was to make everyone look like they had just hopped out of bed.

"When I came on board, I was told bed hair for everyone. I was basically told that everybody has bed hair," Lawrence said.

The hairstylist told Insider that because of the "little town" backdrop of the show, none of the characters were meant to look "over the top."

"Everybody was basically, you know, get up and go, and that was the whole feel of it. But I was basically told from day one: 'Bed hair,' and I had to ride with that," he added.

Kate Winslet, who leads the limited series, has previously discussed the importance of her character's realistic look, and the ways in which she has had to fight to maintain it.

During an interview with The Times of London, Winslet detailed her first discussion with HBO after early shooting for the show began: "HBO said, 'Does Kate have to look so . . . ' " she said. "And I said, 'What, like shit? Yes. Kate does have to look like shit.'"

Earlier this year, Winslet separately starred alongside Saoirse Ronan in the similarly unglamorous period drama "Ammonite," where she eschewed all make-up and stereotypical period dress such as corsets and big hats. Later, when speaking with The Times, Winslet said she is "really enjoying a bit of sneaky pushback."

"Yeah, I am older. I look like crap sometimes. Because what I observe are people spending a huge amount of time worrying about how they look, with filters," she said. "Looking at pictures of impossibly glamorous places to have holidays. I worry about that, for younger generations. These unattainable ideals. And I do not want to play roles that feed into anything unattainable anymore. I'm done with that."

"Mare of Easttown" is airing Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.