Facing Your Fears

Evan Rachel Wood approaches her roles with a Method-like intensity. To play Veda in Mildred Pierce, which she calls the hardest role she has ever done, she had to convince audiences she was a top soprano singer. "Before we even began filming, we had two months of preparation for mimicking piano, which I can still do in the air," she wiggles her fingers to illustrate her point. "I had to learn to lip-synch opera in three different languages. I almost wish I had really been singing because that would have been easier than having to nail down somebody's every breath and move." She says that she didn't listen to anything but opera the entire time she was working on Mildred Pierce. "I even played the songs in my sleep so that it was subconsciously just engrained."

The young actress was also faced with one of her first nude scenes. This caused no end of prurient speculation about 'merkins' in the US press. These are the wigs used to simulate female pubic hair. Wood reportedly had to use one in the name of authenticity because women in the 1930s didn't bikini-wax. "I feel like I've avoided that as long as possible," Wood reflects on the scene for the Independent. "No matter what, everybody has got fears and insecurities. For me, when I am really afraid of something, I have to do it. I have to face that fear... and now I am so happy that I did it!"


Her terror at the nude scene was mitigated (at least to an extent) by the presence of her co-star, the redoubtable Kate Winslet. "Kate was the main person who really put everything in perspective for me..." Wood adds that the scene wasn't titillating in the slightest. "It's not a sexy moment at all. It is one of the most unsettling, disturbing uses of nudity I've seen on TV in quite some time... I am not in a hurry to do it again. It was not as if it's some quick shot. It's one long shot, slowly walking past the camera. There is no hiding anything. It was terrifying, but afterwards Kate and I had a drink and Kate said, 'Here's to your first full-frontal!'."

Wood mimics Winslet's accent, making her sound strangely like Joyce Grenfell. It's an impersonation she first aired on Chelsea Lately recently when reminiscing about her time working with the English actress. "Kate's done everything," Evan stated, before revealing she didn't want to 'look bad' to Kate by not doing the nude scene. "She basically dares you! She's like, 'I've done it all, all right. I mean I've peed on camera and then had to make out with Harvey Keitel.' And I was like, 'Wow. Yeah, that trumps my whole nude scene. So, I'm going to have to do this.'" Kate did reward Evan for doing it though, making her tea during the scene and then afterwards she poured the vodka tonics.

So what did her own mum make of her turn in Mildred Pierce as the daughter from hell? "She loved it... the performance, not the character." Wood watched Mildred Pierce alongside her parents and was "proud" that they didn't flinch, even when Veda was at her most mischievous and destructive... and naked.
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Mildred Pierce S01E05

It's never easy getting naked for the cameras, even if you've stripped down onscreen before. Good thing, then, that Evan Rachel Wood had a seasoned mentor to help her through that first full-frontal shot: her Mildred Pierce costar Kate Winslet. If there’s one thing the British actress knows how to do, other than win Oscars, it’s doing nudity with grace.

"She coached me through my first nude scene," Wood said at the series' NYC premiere. "I mean, she's done it all. She was literally next to the camera going [thumbs-up]."

The 23-year-old actress admitted she was a lot more nervous than she thought she was going to be, so how exactly did Kate help her younger costar through it?

"Helping her to fully acknowledge the weight of that within the story. And also just talking to her about how to find a level of confidence," explained Kate, who plays Evan's mother in the movie.

It also helps to keep the spectators to a minimum.

"You keep the room as empty as possible and just kind of being there for her, really, and letting her know there was someone to hold her hand and throw a robe over her at the right moment...made her feel better," Kate added.

But the Oscar winner did convince Evan to cover up a bit.

"I looked at Kate and she was like, 'You've got to do it. Trust me, it's so brave. Put a merkin on and you'll be fine," the True Blood star continued. “Let’s just say, I had to wear a wig because it was in the '30s, and everything had to look like it was in the '30s,” Wood said with a laugh. “Kate helped me. She gave me strength. She kind of dared me. I also felt I had to prove it to myself. I had to do it at least once—get it all on film now so when I’m eighty I can look back at it and say, ‘Yeah! I did that!’”

Winslet, who plays the title role originated by Joan Crawford in the 1945 classic, is an old hand at baring all on screen. The Oscar winner disrobed for “The Reader” and famously posed au natural for Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic.”

"I think it's important that women on screen are portrayed as real women,” Winslet told People. “I'm comfortable in my own skin and I'm comfortable with all the imperfections that I have." Yet it still does not stop it being scary. "It is really strange, nudity," she said. "I know I've done it many, many times now, but you never really get used to it. You don't!"


Television Series: Mildred Pierce (S01E05)
Release Date: April 2011
Actress: Evan Rachel Wood
Video Clips Credit: El Amigo
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