Evan Rachel Wood on ‘The Conspirator’ and How She Prepares For a Role

In a recent interview with WSJ, one of Hollywood’s youngest, but longest working vets, Evan Rachel Wood, discussed her time on the set of director Robert Redford’s 2010 flick, The Conspirator, recently released on DVD. 

The movie, that focused in Mary Surratt, a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln, featured Wood in the role of Surratt’s daughter Anna, alongside a cast of leading lady Robin Wright, James McAvoy and Tom Wilkinson.

When asked how much time she spent with Wright, she replied that she didn’t have a lot of prep time, but managed to pull it off with her experience in the business.  “I didn’t have a lot of time, unfortunately. I mean, I would have loved to spend a lot of time with her, but we got to the set and we just went – there wasn’t really any rehearsal for us or anything. But I got to know her better during filming, and afterwards.”  

While Wood seems to have jumped right into the Robert Redford project, her attraction to the role of Anna appears to have paid off, even with the small amount of material she had to go off on.  “This was a great script and I loved the role – I mean, she was strong, she was loyal, and she wasn’t going to back down, and I really loved that about her. And we didn’t have a lot of material to go off of from history; there was like a photo and a tiny little blurb about my character. So it was kind of cool to invent her in a way, or my interpretation of her, so I hope I did her justice.”

 How does the True Blood actress normally prep for her roles?  “I like some rehearsal with the other actors to kind of get a feel for what they’re going to do and what page they’re on. I like a really close relationship with the director so that it’s a close collaboration. But I try not to over think it, really; I do a movie because I connect with the character, so in a way I kind of know who they are, so when I get there, it’s all about getting in the clothes, getting in the setting, getting in that frame of mind, and then not thinking.”

Evan Rachel Wood can be seen in her latest movie project, The Ides of March, due in theaters on October 7th 2011.