Evan Rachel Wood’s return from rebellion

Evan Rachel Wood’s adolescent rebellion was epic, said Tom Shone in New York. “I didn’t really get a normal childhood,” says the actress, 23. She was just 9 when her mother, a former actress, divorced her husband, moved them to Los Angeles, and became Wood’s full-time drama coach. “We shared a room, we shared a bed,” says Wood. “We hadn’t been apart for more than a week my whole life.”

When Wood took a role in the film Thirteen as a teenage girl who battles with her mother, art soon imitated life. “The minute I turned 18, I hopped on Marilyn Manson’s tour bus and was like, ‘I’m going to have an adolescence.’” Wood was 18, Manson 39, when they began a wild relationship, which ended last August. “Manson gave me what I felt I’d missed out on, where you get to experiment and cut loose and change and grow. I lived 50 lifetimes in those four years.”

Now she’s reconciled with her mother, and her musical tastes have shifted radically. “People honestly think I’m kidding about [Justin] Bieber,” she says. “My mom is so confused. She’s like, ‘Evan, really?’ I’m like, ‘Go see Never Say Never. You’ll understand.’”

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