Evan Rachel Wood ranks among the finest of Hollywood’s young up-and-coming performers today. She’s earned critical notices for her performances in films like the controversial Thirteen, as well as Running With Scissors and Across The Universe.
In what may be symbolic of just how far Wood has come in Hollywood, at the age of 21, she’s been bestowed what has become a rite of passage among Hollywood’s actors, a chance to work with legendary independent comedy writer and filmmaker Woody Allen. Her latest role is in his newest comedy Whatever Works.
Evan spoke with us with what it was like to work with Allen.
“Well, I can’t really say that I was really surprised by anything because I don’t like to have any preconceived notions,” Wood replies, “I just like to experience it on my own, no matter what. But I was just amazed. I have a whole new respect for comedians in general.”
“I knew it was going to be difficult and a challenge, but I mean it was just like I was running a marathon everyday,” she adds, “It was just a whole new territory for me and I’m just glad he had the faith in me to offer me the part without even seeing an audition, but yeah, just the challenge of it.”
Wood plays Melodie St. Ann Celestine, a Southern girl, who encounters misanthropic physicist Boris Yelnikoff, played by Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David. We noted the broadness of the character in how it can be played with the actress.
“I don’t know,” Evan responds, “I thought that’s what where Woody was really great about giving me the freedom to go as far as I wanted and me trusting him to tell me when I was going to reel it in. But funny enough, broad was the word he actually told me all the time (laughing).”
One particularly telling scene in Whatever Works is one where Boris overcomes a panic attack by watching Fred Astaire films. We asked Evan how she herself would react to a panic attack.
“I watch the news a lot, because it makes me laugh,” she says, “I think if you watch the news long enough, it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, because it just makes no sense. They just do the most ridiculous stories and there’s the weirdest stuff happening. It’ll calm me down because it’s ridiculous.”
The film is Woody Allen’s first film in four years to set in his native home of New York City. Finally, we asked Wood, who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina and Los Angeles, California, how she felt about filming in New York.
“I did what Melodie did,” she says, “I moved to New York when I was 18 and when I turned 18, I was filming Across The Universe. So I was filming on the streets of New York and singing Beatles songs and it changed my entire life. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t made that movie. I spent a year here and I just felt like I knew who I was finally, so this city really does something to you.”
“I have a different experience every time I come here,” Evan continues, “I’m always finding new places. I don’t know where we filmed that felt…I want to say Battery Park, but that was a nightmare (laughing). That was a terrible nightmare, all the noise and the rain, but it wasn’t Battery Park’s fault, but it was really cool. The wax museum was pretty funny. It was magical. I didn’t know what was real or fake.”
