Evan Rachel Wood: Playing "Westworld" Character Is Why I Got Trauma Therapy

Evan Rachel Wood is known for her openness on difficult topics, from the biphobia she has faced — she came out publicly in 2011 — to her past sexual assaults. She's also tackling the stigma around mental health problems, recently sharing how the experience of playing Dolores Abernathy on HBO's Westworld led her to seek therapy.

Speaking at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit in Boston on Monday, the 30-year-old actress talked about her connection with Dolores, a robot who learns her life isn't her own; Dolores been designed to entertain guests in a Wild-West-themed amusement park. "She’s been abused for about 30 years," Wood said. And while Dolores is a "survivor," Wood added, she is "not broken. She even has pity on her abusers. She rises above it, and that gave me strength in real life, and actually helped me come to terms with a lot of my trauma and my repressed memories. It got me to go to trauma therapy and actually deal with things that I hadn’t dealt with at all. So she’s really changed my life."

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Wood has spoken before about her own mental health battles, including her suicide attempt at age 22. At a Human Rights Campaign event earlier this year, where she was honored with an HRC Visibility Award, she gave a speech addressing how bisexual women in particular are at high risk for depression and suicide.

Seeking help, she said at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit, has been critical to her own healing. "My biggest challenge I've ever overcome was myself. Nobody held me back more than me, and nobody was meaner to me," she said. "I shouldn’t even be here, and I tried not to be a couple of times... [I]t’s really hard to get help, the right kind of help. And it’s hard to even admit to yourself that you need help. And people are so terrified to ask for help."

Self-acceptance, she concluded, has meant coming to terms with both what she appreciates about herself and what she struggles with. "[I]t was learning how to love myself in all my messy glory — the great things about myself, but also my imperfections, and [to] know that no one’s perfect, we’re always learning, and that’s a good thing," she said. "When you make mistakes, it's just proof you're trying. It's like, What are you going to do with the mistake? Are you going to learn from it? How are you going to grow from this? What's the lesson here? Keep asking yourself questions."

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