Aimee Lou Wood: ‘I feel like I can take ownership of what I need to thrive’

By Jenny Garnsworthy, PA

White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has spoken of how Angelina Jolie gave her a thumbs up after she spoke out during filming for their new film Anxious People.

Wood said she had struggled with the number of crew members shouting at her while filming an emotional scene in the project.

She told Harper’s Bazaar magazine: “I’ve spent years feeling unable to say anything like that for fear of seeming argumentative – but now I feel like I can take ownership of what I need to thrive, and tell people what won’t work for me.

“When I spoke up, all I could see was Angelina giving me a thumbs up.

“She’s possibly the most famous woman ever, but she’s so normal. I’m fairly certain she drives herself to set each day…”

Wood, who shot to fame on Netflix drama series Sex Education, is to receive the Television Actress award at the Harper’s Bazaar Women of the Year Awards on Thursday.

She told the magazine that she finds being in Los Angeles hard, adding: “I find LA emotionally bulimic, and I say that as an ex-bulimic.

“It is this super-sized adventure where everyone’s talking about you all the time and you have to talk about yourself all the time. And then I leave, and I want to throw it all up.”

Wood described acting as a “safe place for me to work out my feelings”.

“I think for that reason a role will hit me in the heart, in the gut,” she added.

“I was really lucky to have this fantastic teacher at Rada who would always say, ‘Just tell the truth. All of the other stuff will come, but just tell the truth’.

“I’m not sure I know any other way to act.”

But she said she would also like to do more writing in her career, telling the magazine: “All I’ve ever wanted was to be a writer.

“I didn’t really want to be an actor. I don’t really understand how I got here!”

Wood appears on one of a number of different covers for Harper’s Bazaar UK’s December/January issue, which goes on sale on November 7th.