Evan Rachel Wood: 13 Going On 20

At just 19, Evan Rachel Wood might as well be a Park City ski instructor. King of California, co-starring Michael Douglas, marks the fifth film of Wood's to make the trip to Sundance, and rounds out a decade since the then-9-year-old's first Park City appearance.

Also signing Wood's Sundance slate are Mike Binder's The Upside of Anger (with Joan Allen and Kevin Costner) and Pretty Persuasion (with Ron Livingston, James Woods and Selma Blair), both of which hit the festival in 2005, and the powerful Thirteen, which picked up the 2003 festival's Best Director prize on its way to earning an Independent Spirit Award and BAFTA, Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.

King is about a Dad (Douglas) who, upon his release from a mental institution, tries to enlist his daughter in a treasure hunt for Spanish gold which leads them, according to his calculations, to a spot beneath the suburban Costco warehouse. While the film is Mike Cahill's feature writing and directing debut, it boasts the producing credits of not only Thirteen's Michael London, but also of the inimitable Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, About Schmidt).

Moving Pictures Magazine: Did you have fun working with Michael Douglas?
Evan Rachel Wood: I did, yeah. I hadn't seen him do a lot of comedy, so I didn't really know what to expect since it was such a strange, over the top character. Then the second we started rehearsing and I heard him playing the character and doing it, it was perfect. I just thought he was hysterical. He just cracked me up the whole time.

I was actually attached to [King of California] for a few years before we finally got it made, but it was one of my favorite scripts that I was just crossing my fingers would finally get a chance to see the light of day.

MPM: Is there a certain element that determines the roles you take?
Wood:  Usually it's just the effect that the script has on you when you read it, if you can connect with the part, and if it makes you feel something. I try to look for interesting filmmakers, and the cast is always really important to me. Usually that's a condition of mine. I'll say, "I'll do this, but I want to wait and see who else is going to be a part of it just so I know that it's in good hands."

MPM:  It seems to work: Al Pacino, Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Holly Hunter and, now, Michael Douglas. Ever get butterflies?
Wood:  Holly Hunter and Cate Blanchett are two of my idols, so working with them was just incredible; and still today I still can't even really get a sentence out about Cate Blanchett without stuttering or anything.

[Cate] and Holly and Joan Allen - I was always watching them just to see how they do it. They're all really different, but they're all pretty similar in just how quickly they seem to just turn it on and off. I mean, they really just go into this zone and become that character and then all of the sudden they can snap out of it and be really playful and funny; they're machines.

MPM: Did any one of them become a mentor?
Wood:  Me and Holly got really close when we filmed Thirteen just because that was such an intense shoot and we had to get pretty vulnerable and emotional and close. We were supposed to have this mother/daughter relationship, and so we kind of took those roles on a little bit. I think Holly, even after the movie ended, looked out for me, and I still definitely look up to her like a mom.

MPM: Are you ever surprised by the audience's reception to some of your films?
Wood:  I really try not to think about it. I don't really care if people love it or hate it as long as it makes them feel something. If people hate it and are passionate about it, that's just as good to me as if they love it and they're passionate about it. You know? If I am happy with it and I really love it, then I'm usually okay with it.

MPM: Do you ever go to the theater and see how a film plays?
Wood:  Sometimes, yeah. If it's kind of an outlandish movie, I like to see how people react. Pretty Persuasion was a pretty crazy movie, and I went to the theater just to see how people were going to respond - and they were all laughing hysterically, so I felt pretty good about it.                                                                               

MPM:  When you look back at Thirteen, does it feel like a million years ago?
Wood:  It's weird; I just saw the DVD the other day, and I was looking at it and looking on the back and, yeah, it really freaked me out that it was about five years ago now. I look back at the person I was - it's just like a completely different person... That whole movie just really changed my life and it made me kind of grow up a little bit... in some good ways.

MPM:  What was the Golden Globe nomination experience like, nominated alongside Cate Blanchett, Scarlett Johanssen, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman?
Wood:  It just didn't really seem real, and it still doesn't. I watch the Golden Globes now, and the SAG awards, and I have to remind myself, like, "Hey! You were there and you were nominated." You know, no matter who you are or what you believe, it always feels good when something that you've respected and kind of looked up to since you were little acknowledges the work that you did.

It's funny because, when I was in third grade, we had to do a little project to write a paper on a dream of yours, or something that you aspire to be, and mine was "I want to get nominated for a Golden Globe."

MPM: Over an Oscar®?
Wood:  I think I wanted the food.

MPM: Having had so much success at Sundance, what does the festival mean to you?
Wood:  I've had a lot of crazy things happen to me at Sundance. The first movie I did went to Sundance, and it was there when I was 9; and of course Thirteen, which just completely changed my life. And I've fallen in love at Sundance twice... so I'm just waiting to see what happens this year. Maybe I'll fall in love a third time.

MPM:  I heard your Silver and Gold track on the Internet this morning. Do you look back on things like that as something you'll never get away from?
Wood:  No, I mean I, I wouldn't want to change anything because I'm happy where I am now, but it is kind of terrifying looking back and just, ahhh, having all of your awkward stages and figuring out who you are in front of everybody.

MPM:  By starring in a music video (Green Day's Wake Me When September Ends) with Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot; King Kong) you followed in the footsteps of some pretty amazing actors, like Chris Walken, Liv Tyler, Gwyneth Paltrow. Are you thankful that it's such a popular track?
Wood:  It definitely seems like kind of a timeless song and kind of a timeless music video. It's about, at least the music video is about, young love and innocence and innocence lost. And I think that's something that is always going to be around. People are always going to be able to relate to it, so it's kind of nice.

MPM:  Did they tell you what the song was about when you shot those scenes, or did you just have a script that was separate from the music?
Wood:  I don't think we found out what the song was about until afterwards. They just kind of told us what the video was going to be about. We didn't really have a script; we just kind of improv'd everything. We just kind of went in and did it.

MPM:  How did Julie Taymor's project, Across the Universe, come your way?
Wood:  I'd heard that Julie Taymor was going to be doing a Beatles musical, and immediately freaked out because I couldn't imagine anything cooler. And it was just one of those things that, if I didn't get the part and didn't do the movie, then that was just...I would die. So I kept an eye on it and I just had it in my head that I was going to fight to the death for that part. I went in and sang two songs and I read a scene and left thinking that it either went really, really well or really, really bad - I couldn't read Julie back then. It all happened so fast, and I almost cried when I found out they wanted me to do it. I couldn't stop jumping up and down.

MPM:  Do you still feel like you're confined to playing younger roles?
Wood:  I don't think so. This year I made the resolution that these would be my last teenagers that I was going to play. King of California and In Bloom [with Uma Thurman] I was attached to since I was about 15, and I loved the scripts so much that I wasn't going to not do them because I didn't want to play a teenager again. But those are like my two farewells, and now I'm going to try and concentrate more on making that transition. Because now that the new year's here, I'm technically going to be 20 this year and that's really freaking me out.

MPM:  There seem to be a few young actors, like Natalie Portman going to Harvard, who are going off to college and having that experience, and then coming back. Do you have any similar thoughts?
Wood:  I've thought about it, and it probably won't end up happening just because I can't really see myself doing anything else except this. But I don't know. It might even be insecurity; I don't know if I'd fit in very well in a scene like that.

MPM:  What do you do with your downtime between films?
Wood:  I try and write [scripts, music, poetry], and I'll play around with my friends and try and make some music or make silly short movies, go to concerts and try and travel. Mostly I'm traveling a lot for work, so I just try and stay in one place. Things are pretty crazy when I'm working, so when I'm not I just kind to try to chill out a little bit.

MPM:  Is it weird having so much information about you on the Net?
Wood:  Not really because I think I've always managed to still keep a lot of it to myself. I don't really mind what is out there right now.

MPM:  Do you visit your fan sites at all?
Wood:  Occasionally I do, yeah; somebody will send me a link to a funny post or a funny video. I try to stay away because sometimes they can be funny, but sometimes they can really make you feel like crap.

MPM:  What traits do you prefer in a director you're working with?
Wood:  It's nice when they know what they want, and I know my perfect director would be really honest with me and really blunt. Gets thing going a little quicker. I don't mind that, but I also like a little bit of freedom and for them not to be so controlling that I can't change something or try something different here. As long as they give me a little bit of room to move around, I'm happy.

MPM:  Is there a particular director you've had either the most fun with or who you've felt you've learned a lot from?
Wood:  I had a great time making Running with Scissors, and Ryan Murphy is just one of my favorite people. I thought he was just an amazing director and just a really great person. It was just a really good set to be on, like that's the movie that I could film every year.

MPM:  Let's say someone just discovered you; they just picked up something in a DVD market somewhere. Are there a couple of films that you're proudest of, that you would like people to go back and look at?
Wood: I was really proud of Pretty Persuasion, I worked really hard on that one and Running with Scissors was another one I had a great time doing and I'm proud of.

MPM: The Vanity Fair from July '03 has you, Lindsay Lohan, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff, Amanda Bynes, Alexis Bleidel, Raven and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on the cover. Do you find it unavoidable to be compared to those people?
Wood:  I don't know, I mean...everybody who was on that cover is pretty different. I think we all represented some kind of young Hollywood crowd. I didn't know [them], but it was cool to see a lot of them in person and find out that a lot of them were actually nice, because you never know. That was a group of girls who constantly are hearing about each other and constantly hearing each other's names and, you know, we're either going out for the same roles or competing for something, so none of us really knew what to expect when we walked onto that shoot. We didn't know if any catfights were going to be breaking out or anything, and I'm not saying that there weren't, but I think most of us were pleasantly surprised that everybody was really cool about the whole thing.

I wasn't in any of the catfights; I was watching on the sidelines...laughing.

MPM:  Was acting always going to be your career? Did you ever have any thoughts that maybe you should go off and do something else for a bit?
Wood:  Not really, no. It's all I knew when I was little - it's what I grew up with, because my parents live and breathe acting. It wasn't until I was about nine and I'd starred in my first movie and worked every day, really long hours, and it was so hard and I was so tired, that's when I realized it was a job and it was really hard work. But it's a really good "hard." When you get home at the end of the day you're, like, "I got to do what I want to do and I got to be creative and I did this really hard thing, but the final product is something that I'm going to be really proud of." It makes you feel good that you worked so hard.

MPM:  I noticed your brother, Ira, has credit in some of the films that you've been in as well. Is it easier or harder having a brother in the industry, too?
Wood: It's really great because we've both always been really supportive of each other and never competitive. I mean, me and my brother both grew up acting together. We did our first plays together and our first movies together, and so it's actually been nice to have that kind of support system.

I still was having so much fun and didn't want to stop, and it was also something that I was really passionate about, and that's when I thought, "I think I want to do this all the time."

MPM:  Does it feel like a job now, or does it still feel like a lot of fun?
Wood:  It's definitely really hard and it feels like a job, but like it's a good challenge.