The Sunday Times | 11th January 2026
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The Run Away star credits a Dublin clinic with a ‘life-changing’ treatment that involved thousands of grafts
Harlan Coben’s new thriller starring James Nesbitt has topped the Netflix charts in Britain, but it’s the Northern Irishman’s luscious head of hair that has emerged as the star of the show.
Nesbitt plays a father relentlessly searching for his missing daughter in the action-packed series Run Away, involving bust-ups, gunfights and mystery. However, it is his follicular revival that has captured the attention of many viewers, one going so far as to claim he looks like George Clooney.
While his on-screen charisma has always come naturally, the Cold Feet and Hobbit star credits the restoration of his once receding hairline for the newfound confidence he brings to leading roles.
Two years after leaving drama school, while still in his twenties, Nesbitt said he became aware that he was suffering from hair loss. But after four transplants over the course of 18 years at a clinic in south Dublin, the actor now sports a full head of hair.
“It was hugely transformative for me, because it somehow gave me more confidence about the future,” Nesbitt said. “There are so many actors who are bald and do incredible work. It was a personal thing with me. I was uncomfortable about losing it, and I was made much more confident. It was life-transformative for me.”
The actor, 60, had never heard of hair transplants before a friend recommended Hair Restoration Blackrock. He eventually opted for his first transplant in 2007.
“I never in my wildest dreams expected it would be as good as it has been,” he said.
Maurice Collins, founder and medical director of the clinic, is the man who saved Nesbitt’s hairline. The actor had a total of about 12,000 grafts of between two and four hair follicles at a time. Each graft costs €10.
Collins said that about one in five patients who come for consultations at the clinic go ahead with transplants. Many of them have gone to great lengths to conceal or compensate for their baldness.
“An awful lot of men will wear baseball hats to frame their face. It’s the framing of the face that’s the key element,” he said.
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