Rachel Hurd Wood Biography

Rachel Hurd Wood born Rachel Clare Hurd-Wood is an English actress and model born on 17th August 1990 in Streatham, United Kingdom. She is popularly known for her role as Wendy Darling in the film ‘Peter Pan’.

She studied at Rodborough Technology College in Milford, Surrey from 2001 to 2006 for her GCSEs with Art, English Literature, Psychology and Philosophy as subjects. She had tutored lessons during the filming of Peter Pan in Australia during 2002 to 2003 as her work lasted for a span of 8 to 9 months. She later attended sixth-form Godalming College from 2006 to 2008 to study for her GCE Advanced Levels with Art, Psychology and Philosophy as subjects.

Hurd-Wood had considered becoming a marine biologist because of her love for dolphins. She gave up on the idea when she discovered that it would require studying science because she thought she was not very good at it. She became interested in working with children who have special needs or disabilities. Hurd-Wood studied linguistics from 2008 at University College London, but left the course after a year before travelling to Australia for the filming of Tomorrow, When the War Began, when she decided to focus entirely on her career in acting.

Rachel Hurd Wood Age

She was born on 17th August 1990 in Streatham, United Kingdom. She is  27 years old as of 2018.

Rachel Hurd photo

Rachel Hurd Wood Family

Her parents are Philip, who is a screen writer and voice over artist, and Sarah Hurd-Wood. She has a brother, Patrick who appeared with her in Peter Pan as one of the sleeping children in the “I Do Believe In Fairies” scene.

Rachel Hurd Wood Husband| Boyfriend

She became engaged to British musician Ben Westbeech in 2012. However, the couple has since separated.  She is currently married to Russ Bain, she made this public on  November 19, 2017 ,  through her Instagram page  by posting a picture that she is married. It was then announced that they were expecting their first child in late 2018. It was then announced on 23 may  2018 that she gave birth to a son  Liam,  born in Hampstead, London.

Rachel Hurd Wood Model

She posed for the publicity and poster material for Volstead Putsch, an underground bohemian party organised by The Triumvirate of Fez at the London’s Volstead Club in 2008.  She also posed for Raw Riddim Records promoting their merchandise such as chains, t-shirts, hoodies the same year .

Rachel Hurd Wood Career

Rachel Hurd Wood began her career in 2002 when she was picked for the role of Wendy Darling, after her grandparents spotted a television clip that said P.J. Hogan was searching for a “young English rose” for the feature film Peter Pan. She was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor, and a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress.

Rachel Hurd Wood portrayed the character Imogen Helhoughton in the 2004 TV film Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, as a 13-year-old victim of a serial killer. Also in 2004, she had a major role of Betsy Bell in the thriller An American Haunting, as a girl who is haunted and tormented by an unrelenting demon.

In 2005 she appeared in an adaptation of the best-selling novel by German writer Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Set in 18th century France, Hurd-Wood portrayed Laura Richis, the red-headed virgin daughter of a politically connected merchant played by Alan Rickman. She had her brunette hair dyed red. She was nominated for the “Best Supporting Actress” award at the 33rd Saturn Awards by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for her role.

She played the role of the babysitter in the 2011 teaser for a proposed feature-length film, Let’s Go Play at the Adams, based on the book of the same name by Mendal Jonhson. She next played the role of the daughter of the character Teddy, in the short film It Ends Here, directed by her friend Zimon Drake.

In 2012, Rachel Hurd Wood-Wood played the female lead role of Elisabeth James in the film Highway to Dhampus, a story about the effect foreigners in Nepal and Nepali expatriates have on the locals. Later in the year, she narrates the words of her fashion-designer friend, Matthew Williamson, in an advertisement/mini-film. She next starred alongside the singers Tyler James and Kano in the music video for the single “Worry About You” (feat. Kano) by Tyler James.

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Rachel Hurd Wood Movies and TV Shows

• 2003: Peter Pan
• 2004: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
• 2005: An American Haunting
• 2006: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
• 2009: Dorian Gray
• 2009: Solomon Kane
• 2010: Tomorrow, When the War Began
• 2011: Hideaways
• 2011: The Mapmaker
• 2015 – 2016: Home Fires
• 2015: Highway to Dhampus
• Since 2017: Clique
• 2017: Beautiful Devils

Rachel Hurd Wood Friends of TLM

Rachel Hurd Wood Interview

Interviewer: How would you describe yourself to our readers?

Rachel Hurd Wood: I am a young woman who lives in Camden. I’ve been an actress for 15 years and a writer forever, and I’m now thinking about changing careers… that’s the headline I suppose.

Interviewer: How did you first get involved with The London Magazine?

Rachel Hurd Wood: I’m doing a degree with the Open University and I took a course on creative writing which Steven O’Brien [TLM Editor] was a tutor for. One of the things I’d written, he absolutely tore into – he was absolutely right to do so, I thought I’d written this incredible collection of poetry and he disagreed! But another thing I wrote he did like, and I’d upped my game by that point, so he got in touch and that was how I became involved with the magazine.

Interviewer: What inspired you to start writing?

Rachel Hurd Wood: I was thinking about this the other day, I think it was listening to Destiny’s Child when I was younger and not being able to relate to the song lyrics because I hadn’t experienced all of these love affairs and situations. I just felt increasingly frustrated at all of these song lyrics that didn’t quite resonate because they weren’t mirroring the experiences that I was having – we’re talking about an 8 or 9 year old child. So I started writing to create my own thing that I was looking for.

Interviewer: You’ve written both poetry and essays for us, and I know you write short stories as well. Do you have a preferred form?

Rachel Hurd Wood: I love writing poems because the turnover’s quick and that’s quite satisfying. I think having the economy of word is an interesting way to express yourself. I find that being able to distil ideas is quite satisfying. I don’t know how anyone writes novels or books, the idea of it is terrifying because it just feels like so much space. I feel less daunted by 10 lines than however many lines in a book. I do enjoy prose though, you have more freedom with how you tell the story, and you don’t have to be quite so particular. I guess the form that you use depends on the feeling you’re trying to express.

Interviewer: What do you enjoy reading?

Rachel Hurd Wood: I love anything written by women. I love Charles Bukowski as well, and tons of writers who have a comic turn of phrase. In particular it would just have to be Dorothy Parker who would be my absolute all-time heroine. From the second I discovered her, I think it was her poem about suicide [Resumé] that I read and it just sparked something. It was like finding your soulmate, this aliveness from finding a woman who so encapsulated the things that I wanted to express in such a painfully hilarious way. I lent her book to my friend and he said that it was like “being tickled by heartache”, which is such a perfect way to describe the effect her words have on me.

Interviewer: What’s your favourite thing to read?

Rachel Hurd Wood: It would be a complete tie between three, if that’s allowed. Dorothy Parker’s Collected Short Stories or Collected Poems, either of those two are an absolute go-to. There’s another book which is perhaps less classy, but I don’t care – it’s called Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan. Every time I read it I cry laughing, it’s so funny, I’ve no idea why it’s not more well-known.

Interviewer: What are your best writing tips?

Rachel Hurd Wood: For people who have it in them but who are reticent to start, they tend to have this fear of failure or of not being perfect. There’s no time for perfectionism, better to get something done that’s good and be done with it. You can always improve it later, so just getting out of your own way is the best thing. I get in my head about things but doing free-writes are so helpful. Use that stream of consciousness when you feel a bit stuck, and before you know it you’ve written a page and you don’t feel so daunted by the idea of writing more and building on it.

Interviewer: You’ve lived in London pretty much your whole life- is there a place you go to get inspired?

Rachel Hurd Wood: Out of London! I find the thoughts come best when I can feel peaceful, so London is quite tricky for that. For me it’s always more about the feelings. Sometimes if I’m on the tube and another passenger p*sses me off, that’s inspiring a feeling of rage and you think “what could I use this as a metaphor for”, you know? But really any sort of park is perfect. My friend gave me a key to a secret garden in Notting Hill, it’s one of those residential things that I definitely shouldn’t have the key for but I absolutely do and it’s so beautiful. Because cities are made of synthetic materials so everything is very still, when you sit in the park and you look at ants crawling or the wind blowing the trees, everything just settles. It’s that whole thing in meditation where you have a riverbed and everything at the bottom is swirled up, so when it settles you can see really clearly and then the good old inspiration comes!

Interviewer: What’s next for you?

Rachel Hurd Wood: I honestly don’t know! My degree finishes in May and I do want to do more creative writing but I don’t really know, it all just feels very open. Writing does feel like a bit of a lifeline though. It’s quite nice to have a big back catalogue of old poems and diary entries and bits of prose and things, going back to that and seeing your own thoughts is just such a comforting thing. I think that’s the one constant that will always be there.

Source: The London Magazine