Evan Rachel Wood Biography:

A remarkably exceptional actress, Evan Rachel Wood focused on playing girls who had seen and tried too much at very early ages. She first grabbed awareness while still in grade school on the unusual television show “American Gothic” (1995-96) and “Once And Again” with young Adam Brody (1999-2002), before amazing critics with her role of a young female who jumps into sex and drugs in the troubling independent production, “Thirteen” alongside friends Vanessa Hudgens and Holly Hunter in 2003, where Wood received a Golden Globe nomination. Following that celebrity accomplishment, Wood switched between conventional Hollywood movie features and small independent productions, gaining praise reviewers and audiences equally with her strong and multipart performances.

Born Sept. 7, 1987 in Raleigh, North Carolina, Wood’s curiosity in acting was influenced by her family’s connection to show business. Her parents, Ira David Wood and Sara Lynne Moore were actors (Ira was also a theater director and writer), as was her brother Ira David IV, while her aunt, Carol Winstead Wood, was a production engineer in Hollywood. 

Wood started showing up in her father’s theater projects while still a toddler, making her stage debut while only six months old in “A Christmas Carol,” and was later showcased as Helen Keller in her father’s adaptation of “The Miracle Worker.”

Wood began appearing in made for television movies at the age of eight. After auditioning for, and losing the part of teen vampire Claudia to Kirsten Dunst in “Interview with the Vampire (1994), Wood's first movie recognition was the crime drama movie “In the Best of Families: Marriage, Pride, and Madness” in 1994, and also several other television projects that followed. Wood also made appearances in three series episodes of Sam Raimi and Shaun Cassidy’s mystic television series, “American Gothic” in 1995. 

Two years later, her parents separated, and Wood moved to Los Angeles with her mother. She immediately found new television projects, the first as the problematic daughter of Billy Campbell’s divorced father on “Once And Again.” She also scored her feature film debut at age eleven in two very diverse films, the comedy romance “Practical Magic” (1998), as a young girl in a family of witches that starred Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, and the heartbreaking drama, “Digging to China” (1998) as a mistreated young girl who becomes friends with a emotionally handicapped adult (Kevin Bacon). The first was a considerable success, but the second movie gave an understanding of the range of Wood’s endless acting talents.

That same year, Wood dropped out of the public school she was attending over arguments with teachers and fellow students, and was home schooled for the rest of her teen years, getting her diploma at age fifteen. During this time, Wood kept busy in an assortment of film ad movie projects that showed her skilled in almost every type of film. Even though she dropped out of the lead role in “Raise Your Voice” (2004) because of scheduling problems, and losing “Mean Girls” (2004) to the more trendy Lindsay Lohan, Wood was an extremely likable hero in the charming kid comedy, “Little Secrets” (2002) with David Gallagher, which built a small following in later television showing. 

Wood also played Al Pacino and Catherine Keener’s daughter in the unusual science fiction spoof “S1m0ne” (2002) and lived through a kidnapping by an Indian medicine man in Ron Howard’s “The Missing” (2003) working with powerhouse stars Val Kilmer and Cate Blanchett. Even though Wood’s acting in both movies was admirable, neither film was able to fully show her true talents.

Suddenly everything changed for Wood with the movie “Thirteen” (2003), giving critics a second chance to view Wood at her best while working alongside super actors Vanessa Hudgens and Holly Hunter. As Tracy, a sophisticated young teen whose effort to stay afloat in her family turns to upheaval, abuse, and disappointment, Wood left audiences breathless from the touching risks she took in the movie. The film earned nothing but good reviews, and gained Wood a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations. 

With the triumph of “Thirteen,” Wood became an admired actress for independent filmmakers looking for someone intelligent and fresh. In 2005, she portrayed the youngest of four girls who each try to find their own way of coping with their missing father and angry and bewildered mother (Joan Allen) in Mike Binder’s touching drama “The Upside of Anger” working next to Kevin Costner.

She then worked on the dark comedy “Pretty Persuasion” (2005), where she was a nasty and sexually open high school girl. Finally, she gave a outstanding performance in the genuine but not fantastic “Running with Scissors” with Gwyneth Paltrow in 2006, in which she played the strange daughter of an even more bizarre therapist father. 

Wood worked on several movies in 2006, the independent film drama “Down in the Valley,” in which she played a a unruly young girl who becomes the item of affection for a deluded man (Edward Norton) who thinks he is a famous cowboy. Then the actress lent her voice to the animated comedy "Shark Bait" (2006) about a fish who must find his destiny to save his home and the love of his life from a bullying shark. Next was the comedy "King of California" (2007) starring Michael Douglas about an unstable dad who after getting out of a mental institution tries to convince his daughter that there's Spanish gold buried somewhere under suburbia.

Wood then starred alongside Uma Thurman in the dramatic thriller "The Life Before Her Eyes" (2007) about a woman's survivor's guilt from a Columbine-like event twenty years ago that causes her present-day idyllic life to fall apart. She then gave her voice to the animated adventure "Terra" (2007) about a peaceful alien planet that faces annihilation, as the homeless remainder of the human race sets its eyes on Terra. Mala, a rebellious Terrian teenager, will do everything she can to stop it. Evan Rachel Wood wrapped the year with "Across The Universe" (2007) about the music of the Beatles and the Vietnam War form the backdrop for the romance between an upper-class American girl and a poor Liverpudlian artist.

After taking a year off from filming, Wood repapered in  the sports action film "The Wrestler" (2009) the story of a retired professional wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson, who is making his way through the independent circuit, trying to get back in the game for one final showdown with his former rival.