INTERVIEW: Evan Rachel Wood

"Most actresses, given an anger scene, deliver a single parp on the self-pity blowhorn, but Wood--loosing arias of rage upon the head of her mother (Holly Hunter)--uncovered all manner of fear and heartbreak and doubt, all the stuff that anger is designed to cloak. “She has this music inside of her that allows her to hit different variants on a note,” says Redford. “Its almost like she’s daring herself to go further, but at the same time be on guard. It creates a great tension, and gives everything she does bite.” Wood is indeed unsettling. Ensconced in a penthouse suite at the London Hotel, a hair and make-up team flit around her in preparation for the red-carpet premiere of the HBO series Mildred Pierce, in which she also stars. She exudes an enamelled poise, dressed in a mauve Gucci dress and boots, her skin a flawless porcelain, her azure eyes staring you down with coltish defiance. As a kid, she used to delight in freaking out her parents theatre friends in Raleigh, North Carolina with her unblinking impersonations of Liz Taylor and Katherine Hepburn (“I just loved watching the look on people’s faces. They would be like: what just happened?”) and now, at 23, has already gone head-to-head with Kate Winslet (Pierce), Holly Hunter (Thirteen), and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler). Her first rule of acting: show no fear."

— from my profile of Evan Rachel Wood for New York magazine. My review of Mildred Pierce here.