Girl Crush: Evan Rachel Wood

BY: Matt Elisofon

Don’t let her age and the recent buzz fool you: Evan Rachel Wood is no newcomer. Born in North Carolina in 1987, Wood began steady work at the ripe old age of seven and hasn’t looked back since.

But the careers of child stars are never that simple. Formations and transformations from childhood, adolescence and adulthood are almost self-contained careers in and of themselves, each with their own challenges and, as many a child-star can attest to, pitfalls.

Thankfully, though, Wood has come out of each phase of her career better than she entered. After a memorable stint on thirtysomething, she emerged as a teen provocateur in Christina Hardwicke’s controversial indie hit, Thirteen (2003), and as a young adult in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. But it wasn’t until Westworld, the new mind-bending HBO series, that Wood found her signature role as a fully fledged adult.

As Dolores Abernathy, the increasingly self-aware robot in an adult playground, Wood can finally show off her range, chops and striking blue eyes on a weekly basis. And as much as it might seem like a breakout role, we must remember that Wood, much like her character onscreen, has been around for a while, lying in wait for the moment her abilities could fully be realized.