“When I’m acting, I’m not thinking about anything. It is, like, the thing that makes me stop thinking. And it is the time where I am the most present.” – Evan Rachel Wood
Before her role on Westworld, Emmy Award winner Evan Rachel Wood made her biggest splash by starring on True Blood and in indie films. It’s made for a very varied career for Wood, who has also branched out into music (she even sang as part of the cast of Frozen II). When asked by Variety, “what do you get out of acting that you don’t get from any other part of your life?”, Wood explains how acting helps her clear her mind… which is often difficult for her! She says:
Ooooh! I guess this goes for acting and singing, but I have ADD, so I’m always multitasking, and thinking about a million things at once. And I talk really fast, and I’m jumping around from topic to topic. When I’m acting, I’m not thinking about anything. It is, like, the thing that makes me stop thinking. And it is the time where I am the most present. Maybe not the most present, because obviously I’m playing different characters — but the time where it all fades away. And I think I can be very socially awkward at times. And like I said, singing is really my language, and talking — sometimes I’m just not good at it.
But when there’s a script and the words are there, and you know where the conversation is going to go, it gives me such freedom to feel and to let my emotions out in a safe way. I can’t say the wrong thing. My whole life — I mean, God, I’ve been doing this since I was 5, Jesus — so my whole life it’s been this really therapeutic thing.
It’s like, here’s where you go to feel. To feel everything!
