Gavin and Stacey star Rob Brydon is one of many stars to have transformed their appearance with a hair transplant.
The 55-year-old actor looks years younger than his real age after significantly blostering his hairline.
He spoke in typically jokey terms about having help with his hair in a chat with Steve Coogan, his co-star in the Sky comedy The Trip.
After pointing out to Coogan that he was showing the first signs of baldness, Brydon said: “You’ve got to ask yourself a question – “Am I going to sit by idly, while Rome burns,
fiddling, or am I going to find a fire hydrant and get to the source of the blaze?”
Brydon has made other cryptic suggestions that he has had a hair transplant.
He has said: “For some time now my head has been feeling a lot warmer but I was unable to put my finger on the reason why.”
Brydon has almost certainly had a hair transplant to bolster his hairline because you cannot achieve the kind of hair growth he has experienced in his 40s and 50s through medication alone.
His surgeon has done a wonderful job – skillfully filling out the front of his hairline.
Lots of actors and high profile celebrities seek help with their hair at Crown Clinic with our consultant surgeon Asim Shahmalak.
His most profile actor client is the Coronation Street star Jack P Shepherd, who had a FUE (follicular unit extraction) procedure at Crown Clinic two years ago.
This is where individual hairs are removed from the back of the scalp and replanted in the balding area at the front.
Jack had a procedure known as long-haired FUE meaning he did not have to fully shave the back and sides of the scalp to get the donor hair.
Instead just a small rectangular patch is shaved and the donor grafts are removed from this area.
The longer hair above it falls over this shaved area so that you can barely see it. Jack chose this method because it is super-discreet and he was filming Coronation Street and needed to maintain continuity between scenes.
Other high profile FUE patients at Crown Clinic with Dr Shahmalak include the Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Roberts, former footballer Didi Hamann and the model Calum Best.
Around 80% of the patients at Crown Clinic opt for FUE, but some still prefer the more traditional form of hair transplantation, FUT (follicular unit transplantation).
This is where a strip of skin is surgically removed from the back of the scalp and all the donor hairs are extracted in one go under a microscope by technicians and then replanted in the same way as FUE by Dr Shahmalak.
The TV doctor Christian Jessen is the most high profile FUT patient we have had at Crown Clinic.
Whichever method Rob Brydon chose, he has got a great result.
Many more actors have since followed his example and got help with their hair through surgeons such as Dr Shahmalak.
The danger for a character actor like Brydon going into his fifties is that they get type-cast in ‘older’ roles because of their hair loss.
That is why a hair transplant is so important – it opens up a much greater variety of work.