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Evan Rachel Wood (born September 7, 1987) is an American actress. She is the recipient of a Critics' Choice Television Award as well as three Primetime Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations for her work in film and television. She began acting in the 1990s, appearing in several television series, including American Gothic (1995–96) and Once and Again (1999–2002). She made her debut as a leading film actress at the age of nine in Digging to China (1997) and garnered acclaim for her Golden Globe-nominated role as the troubled teenager Tracy Freeland in the teen drama film Thirteen (2003). She continued acting mostly in independent films, including Pretty Persuasion (2005), Down in the Valley (2005), Running with Scissors (2006), and Across the Universe (2007). Since 2008, Wood has appeared in more mainstream films, including The Wrestler (2008), Whatever Works (2009), The Ides of March (2011), and she portrayed Madonna in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022). She returned to television the following year in the recurring role of Sophie-Anne Leclerq, the vampire Queen of Louisiana, on True Blood from 2009 to 2011. She also portrayed the title character's malicious daughter in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011), for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe and Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She starred as sentient android Dolores Abernathy in the HBO series Westworld (2016–2022), for which she won a Critics' Choice Award and earned Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations. Wood also voiced Queen Iduna in the Disney animated fantasy film Frozen II (2019). In 2024, she began starring as Audrey in the Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors. Early life and family Wood was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on September 7, 1987. Her mother, Sara Lynn Moore, is an actress, director, and acting coach. Her father, Ira David Wood III, is an actor, theater director and playwright prominent in Raleigh, where he is the co-founder and executive director of a community theatre company called Theatre in the Park. Wood's brother, Ira David Wood IV, is also an actor; she has two other brothers, Dana and Thomas, and a sister named Aden. Her paternal aunt, Carol Winstead Wood, was a production designer in Hollywood. Wood was actively involved in Theatre in the Park while growing up, including an appearance in the 1987 production of her father's musical comedy adaptation of A Christmas Carol when she was just a few months old. She subsequently played the Ghost of Christmas Past in several productions there, and starred as Helen Keller alongside her mother (as Anne Sullivan) in The Miracle Worker, under her father's direction. She attended Cary Elementary School in Cary, North Carolina, where she starred in its production of The Little Mermaid. When her parents divorced, she moved with her mother to her mother's native Los Angeles in 1997 to further her acting career. She attended public school in California before leaving at age 12 for homeschooling. She received her high school diploma at 15. Wood said she earned a black belt in taekwondo when she was 12, and that she participated in the AAU Junior Olympic Games. Career 1993–2000: Early work Wood began her career appearing in several made-for-television films that were shot in her native North Carolina from 1993 onwards. She made her acting debut at the beginning of that year in Sondra Locke's Death in Small Doses. She also had recurring roles in the television series American Gothic (1995–1996) and Profiler (1998–1999), receiving a nomination for Best Supporting Young Actress in a TV Drama Series at the 21st Young Artist Awards for the latter. Wood's first major screen role was in the 1997 film Digging to China, as a ten-year-old girl living with her alcoholic mother, played by Cathy Moriarty, who forms an unlikely friendship with a mentally handicapped man, played by Kevin Bacon. It was shot in Western North Carolina and won the Children's Jury Award at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival. Wood remembers the role as initially hard, but that it "eventually led to her decision that acting is something she might never want to stop doing." The following year she had a role in Practical Magic, a fantasy film directed by Griffin Dunne starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Young Actress at the 20th Young Artist Awards. It was followed by the 1999 made-for-television thriller Down Will Come Baby, for which she was nominated for the YoungStar Award for Best Young Actress in a Mini-Series/Made for TV Film. From 1999 to 2002, Wood was a regular on the ABC television family drama Once and Again in the role of Jessie Sammler. Her character dealt with her parents' divorce, anorexia, and falling in love with her best friend Katie, played by Mischa Barton, in what became the first teen lesbian pairing on network television. For her performance as Jessie, Wood was nominated for the YoungStar Award for Best Young Actress, and won Best Ensemble in a TV Series along with her co-stars Julia Whelan and Meredith Deane, at the 22nd Young Artist Awards. 2001–2005: Breakthrough Wood made her teenage debut as a leading film actress in 2001's Little Secrets, directed by Blair Treu, where she played 14-year-old aspiring concert violinist Emily Lindstrom. For that role, she was nominated for Best Leading Young Actress at the 24th Young Artist Awards. Wood next played a supporting role in Andrew Niccol's 2002 satirical science fiction film Simone, which starred Al Pacino. That same year, Wood was recognized as One to Watch at the Young Hollywood Awards. Wood's breakout movie role followed with Catherine Hardwicke's 2003 film Thirteen. She starred as Tracy Louise Freeland, a young teen who sinks into a downward spiral of hard drugs, sex, and petty crime. Her performance garnered critical acclaim, earning her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Lead Actress. During the time of Thirteen's release, Wood was featured on the cover of Vogue, with the magazine naming her as one of the "It Girls" of Hollywood. She similarly appeared, along with eight other teen actresses, on the cover of Vanity Fair's Young Hollywood issue in July 2003. A supporting role opposite Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones in Ron Howard's The Missing, in which she played the kidnapped daughter Lilly Gilkeson, followed the same year, earning her a nomination for Best Leading Young Actress at the 25th Young Artist Awards. In 2005, Wood appeared opposite Kevin Costner and Joan Allen in the Mike Binder-directed The Upside of Anger, a well-reviewed film in which Wood played Lavender "Popeye" Wolfmeyer, one of four sisters dealing with their father's absence. Her character also narrated the film. Wood's next two starring roles were in dark independent films. In the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize nominee Pretty Persuasion, a black comedy focusing on .... Discover the Rachel Woods popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rachel Woods books.