Comic-Con: Tearful Evan Rachel Wood Explains How ‘Westworld’ Helped Her Tackle Trauma: ‘It Was Transformative’
Evan Rachel Wood was brought to tears while explaining the “transformative” way that Westworld changed her life and helped her work through “trauma” during a panel for the HBO series at Comic-Con in San Diego, California, on Saturday.
“It’s almost hard to talk about because I get so emotional,” she told the audience. “Working on the show changed my life in so many ways. When I read the pilot, I knew I wasn’t going to be a damsel in distress and that I would become strong, but my little brain didn’t fully grasp how deep it was going and how profound it was going to be.”
“As the scripts were coming in, I was starting to grasp what show I was on and that I was at the forefront of this responsibility,” she continued. “I almost had a panic attack around the fourth episode because I realized what was on my shoulders, and was terrified, but then got so excited and believed in it so much.”
Wood added that walking onto giant sets where everyone was in character was such an immersive experience that it threw her deeper into the world of the Western-themed park. Combined with working through and discovering all the layers and “different modes” of her character, Dolores, Wood said she came out of season one empowered and having worked through some of her own issues.
“It was so fulfilling, especially because as women, a lot of the time you feel like your wings are being clipped and you’re not being represented the way you want to and this was like someone had given me the f***en condor wings and I got to take off and fly!” explained Wood, who has previously talked about struggling with her bisexuality and feelings of suicide. “I’m tearing up talking about it, because [I was able] to go on that journey with her, learn things about myself and put my own experiences into what she’s going through. And, using that as a vehicle to work through my own repressed memories or trauma and breaking out and coming through the other side was transformative — and fun.”
Wood…