Ma From Netflix's Little House On The Prairie Is Such A Knockout In Real Life

The Netflix reboot of "Little House on the Prairie" has given beloved characters new faces. Lots of them belong to relatively unknown actors, so fans haven't had many chances to see them in anything other than their 19th-century attire. Crosby Fitzgerald, who portrays Caroline "Ma" Ingalls, is one of them. While definitely good-looking on the show (as seen above), Fitzgerald had to dress way down to properly play the matriarch of a hard-working, yet poor homesteading family living under harsh conditions a century and a half ago.

While side-by-side pics of the OG "Little House on the Prairie" cast members show how much they have changed since the show ended in 1983, pictures also prove that the current characters look pretty different on and off the screen. As the picture from February below shows, in real life Fitzgerald is a knockout with vibrant red hair and deep-blue eyes. She also boasts high cheekbones and a strong jawline that gives that balance the softness of her eyes and fair skin. 

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And while Netflix's "Little House on the Prairie" isn't landing with some old school fans, others are loving what the new actors are bringing to the plate. "I grew up watching the original 'Little House on the Prairie,' read all of the books, and this series is absolutely incredible. I am so excited for the future series!! You play Ma so well!!! It's so amazing to see 'Little House be brought back again,'" a fan raved under one of Fitzgerald's Instagram posts from July. And Fitzgerald is also excited to continue to tap into Ma's energy.

Crosby Fitzgerald didn't initially think she was the right person to portray Caroline "Ma" Ingalls. Having grown up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, she remembered Ma as a stern woman of few words. "I consider myself sort of brash and loud and annoying," Fitzgerald told People in July. "And she's so poised and elegant from what I remember from the books." But the more she read the scripts, the more she realized she had taken a superficial reading of Ma in the past.

Fitzgerald came to appreciate the strength hidden underneath the character's silent resilience. "I was like, 'Wait, she forges this river and then breaks her foot all while she's pregnant and doing this on her own? She pulls a shotgun on a wolf?' I was just like, 'Okay ... I can maybe do this person,'" she revealed. As she tried to find her way into Ma's personality, she discovered more about herself than the character she had been trying to crack.

Fitzgerald realized that Ma was a lot like her maternal grandmother, a stern Southern woman whom the actor struggled to understand. "I feel like Caroline has actually helped me understand her, and women in general who go through so much, who go through these sort of silent battles," she said. Despite the lessons she learned through her differences with Ma, she also found deep similarities that connected her to her character. "Listen, do I relate to following a person across the world? Yeah, I do," she laughed on the "Steve Varley Show," though, as far as we know, "The Little House on the Prairie" star has no real-life partner at the moment.