Date of Birth

7 December 1987, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Birth Name

Evan Rachael Wood

Nickname

Evie

Height

5' 7" (1.7 m)

Mini Biography

Evan Rachel Wood was born September 7, 1987, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her father, Ira David Wood III, is a theatre actor, writer and director, and her mother, Sara Wood, is an actress and acting coach. She has two older brothers--Dana Wood, a musician, and Ira David Wood IV, who has also acted. Evan and her brothers sometimes performed at Theatre In The Park in Raleigh, which her father founded and where he serves as executive director.

At the age of five she screen-tested against Kirsten Dunst for the lead role in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) after a long auditioning process. She moved to Los Angeles with her mom and brother Ira in 1996 and has had success ever since, appearing in a TV series, TV movies and feature films. She has appeared in Practical Magic (1998), starred in the comedy S1m0ne (2002) as Al Pacino's daughter, and followed that with Thirteen (2003), with Holly Hunter. Her breakout role as Tracy in "Thirteen" garnered her a Golden Globes nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture: Drama and for a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. At the time of this SAG nomination, she was the youngest actress to be nominated in the Leading Role category. She received a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie" for her portrayal of Veda Pierce in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011).

She also earned acclaim for her powerful performance as Stephanie, Mickey Rourke's estranged daughter, in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (2008).

Trivia

• Younger sister of Ira David Wood IV and Dana Wood.
• Trained in dance. She loves to sing, swim, rollerblade, and go horseback riding.
• She has a black belt in tae kwon do.
• Has kept in touch with most of her Once and Again (1999) castmates: Mischa Barton, Julia Whelan, and Shane West.
• Sings two songs on the "School's Out" Christmas album: "Christmas Isn't Christmas" and "Silver and Gold".
• Was originally set to play Terri in Raise Your Voice (2004), but dropped out due to production changes. Hilary Duff was then cast as her replacement.
• Enjoys singing.
• Parents divorced in 1997.
• Attended junior high school in the San Fernando Valley but left because she disliked the social environment of high school. She was then home-schooled.
• Lost out on the role of Claudia in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) to Kirsten Dunst.
• Featured in the Miu Miu ad campaign, alongside Selma Blair and Lou Doillon.
• Is actually older than Brady Corbet, who played her older brother in Thirteen (2003).
• Her favorite actress is Cate Blanchett.
• Met her boyfriend Jamie Bell at Sundance Film Festival. While dating, they went on to shoot Green Day's music video for "Wake Me Up When September Ends", where they play a couple.
• In 2003, Vogue Magazine named her one of the "It Girls of Hollywood."
• Her favorite actor is Gene Wilder.
• Is close with the cast of Thirteen (2003) and still remains in touch with them.
• Her hero is Charles Chaplin.
• Wood says that her character in Across the Universe (2007), whom she describes as an "old soul, street smart and ahead of her time", is close to her real-life personality. Wood also describes herself as being "laid back" and "not a party girl", citing her choice to stay away from what is considered a typical Hollywood lifestyle.
• She has English, Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry. Her father is from a Christian background and her mother, who is also originally from a Christian family, converted to Judaism during her own high school years. Evan was raised "half Jewish and half Christian.".
• Divides her time between Los Angeles and New York.
• Became the highest paid actress in music video history for her appearance in boyfriend Marilyn Manson's video for "Heart-Shaped Glasses".
• [2008] Was ranked #7 on Entertainment Weekly's '30 Under 30' the actress list.
• Dislikes her middle name, Rachel, but kept it in her stage name so casting directors wouldn't confuse her gender.
• [2009] Ranked #1 in Venus Zine's 25 Under 25 ladies list.
• Was originally cast in Sucker Punch (2011), but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with True Blood (2008).
• Was in consideration for the role of Joan Jett in The Runaways (2010), but Kristen Stewart was cast, instead.
• The face of Gucci's Guilty campaign (2010).
• Ranked #31 in the 2011 Maxim list "Hot 100" women.
• Is just 12 years younger than Kate Winslet, who played her mother on Mildred Pierce (2011).
• Has a son: Jack Matfin Bell (b. July 29, 2013) with ex-husband, Jamie Bell.
• Returned to work 6 months after giving birth to her son Jack to begin filming 10 Things I Hate About Life (2014).
• Younger maternal half-sister is named Aden Rose Elins.
• Turned down a major role in Mean Girls (2004) as she'd already committed to the lead in Pretty Persuasion (2005), a film with a similar plot.
• A survivor of a double rape and severe physical abuse, she was one of 3 women giving evidence to the U.S. Congress in Washington D.C. in support of the "Sexual Assault Survivor's Bill of Rights Act" [February 2018].
• A lifelong avid fan of David Bowie, she had the privilege of performing some of his songs with original Bowie band members Mike Garson (piano), Gerry Leonard (bass) and Earl Slick (guitar), during a posthumous Bowie tribute concert at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles (February 2018).
• Nominated for the 2018 Emmy Award in the Lead Actress in a Drama Series category for her role as Dolores Abernathy in Westworld (2016), but lost to Claire Foy from The Crown (2016).
• Attempted suicide when she was 22 as she battled PTSD caused by multiple rapes and a severely abusive relationship that went on for years. She later checked herself into psychiatric hospital.
• Born at 1:24pm-EDT.
• Has been close friends with Este Haim since the age of 19.
• Evan is very into astrology and is a Virgo sun, Pisces moon, and Sagittarius rising.
• Lives in Tennessee part-time with her son.

Quotes

• I look back on some of the stuff I wore and I'm so embarrassed. I definitely blame it on this clique of girls I was friends with back then. I've been talked into wearing stuff that I didn't want to wear. Now I like very simple, elegant things, by Oscar de la Renta or [Giorgio Armani].
• I'm in love with London. English boys are great. I completely fell in love with it over there.
• What's nice about acting is that you're not just left with yourself all the time, but you get to see the world through so many different people's eyes.
• Growing up on screen is painful. I have had to go through puberty with millions watching . . . I hope to have a career like Jodie Foster, going from child to adult actress.
• If the world were to end tomorrow, I really believe I could say I have lived a full life already--and that I have been extremely lucky.
• [on playing "Tracy" in Thirteen (2003)] Once you commit, you commit. You can't hold back. We all knew that the only way we would pull this [movie] off was for everyone to give everything they had. I could not hold back.
• Whenever something bad happens, I just always have to tell myself that this is happening for a reason, and I have to be learning something from this and taking something away from this. And you just have to think about the big picture, and you have to remember just how small you are in the grand scheme of things, and that in the long run, you're probably going to be okay. So that's all I kept thinking about...just trying to make the best out of .
• Oh God, I worry about everything, such as I'm gonna say something stupid. I'm not good at communicating what's going on in my head.
• I just hate all that [show-business mingling]. I just have to come back to reality for a little bit, have a real life. I'm pretty laid-back. I hang out with my friends, read, go to concerts and try and travel as much as I can. I'm not a party girl, I don't eat at the Ivy and I'm not shopping on Rodeo Drive. It's pretty easy to stay out of that if you want to. There are other places. I really like being able to go out anywhere and nobody really cares.
• [on her fame] It is a little weird, and I do feel a little bit disoriented sometimes. I'm usually pretty shy around people and pretty private. So yeah, it is a little weird all of a sudden to see yourself everywhere with your tongue hanging out! And a pierced tongue!
• I used to not even be able to order pizza on the phone because I was just so shy. I think that's why so much comes out on-screen, because that's my time to let go in a safe place. When you're doing that, it's all written down on paper and it's total fiction.
• [on being independent and getting her own home] I'm such a crazy perfectionist, I probably stood in Linens 'n Things looking at the square plates or the round plates for, like, 10 minutes, going, "God, this is a big decision. These are my first plates! What am I going to get? What do I do?!
• You get a script that's not very good, and they're offering you millions of dollars, but you think, "Okay, this script is so bad, I won't even do it for a million dollars" . . . And then it gets to #1 at the box office, and people ask, "Don't you regret not doing that?" Not really.
• [on translating scripts onto the screen] A script can just be a blueprint, and you've got to go in and build it and color it in and paint it.
• [on doing her first nude scene, in Across the Universe (2007)] I won't just take my clothes off for anybody. It has to be the right circumstances. I couldn't have thought of a better way to do it because it wasn't a sex scene. It's a sleeping woman and somebody is singing something, which is one of the most beautiful songs written about a woman, period. And he's singing about you.
• [on Across the Universe (2007)] If I go to see a [The Beatles] film, I want it to be weird and artistic and interesting and experimental and psychedelic and dark at times and also beautiful--and that's what this is.
• I like to do movies that I don't expect everyone to like. If someone comes up to me and says, "I hated that movie you did", I think, "At least you felt passionate about it. It stuck with you and you had some feeling about it".
• I'd love to [make an album], but I've just never met people who didn't want to turn me into some pop diva.
• [on Across the Universe (2007) co-star Jim Sturgess] He's the best guy friend I have. I've always hung out with guys, but it's hard to find really good guy relationships that don't get weird. And it never has with us, once.
• Falling in love is one of the scariest and hardest things that someone can do, but it's also the most amazing thing that can happen to you.
• I've always had a real fascination with Alice in Wonderland and really related to it in some way. And since I was little, people always nicknamed me Alice, even total strangers. I do know I'm always in Wonderland. And I'm definitely just as curious. I don't mind being amongst the mad people, I enjoy it.
• [April 2011, Esquire Magazine] I'm into for anything. Meet a nice guy, meet a nice girl.
• [on coming out as bisexual] I wanted to wait ... to have enough years under my belt where people knew that it wasn't a phase or anything and I wasn't doing it for attention; this is a part of who I am, and I'm old enough to really know who I am by now.
• [I was] Raised half jewish and half christian. But today I practice neither. I am more spiritual than religious.
• I was a magician's assistant for a little bit when I was 20, just for fun and to have a break (from acting). No one ever saw my face. It was fun! I love the excitement of the illusion and doing it right so nobody can tell it's a trick.