ABU DHABI // While one of the biggest names appearing at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival is only in the capital for a couple of nights, she still intends to squeeze in visits to two of its landmarks.
"I'm definitely going to go to the mosque," said Evan Rachel Wood, talking to The National on Saturday afternoon and pointing at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque from her eighth-floor suite in the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr. "And then I think I'm going to go on the fastest roller coaster in the world at Ferrari World."
The 24-year-old American, who stars alongside George Clooney, Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the political thriller The Ides of March, which was screened at the Abu Dhabi Theatre on Friday night, said it had been incredible to work alongside such names.
"All the people working on Ides are at the top of their game. It's really an honour."
Wood is no stranger to fame, having appeared in such films as Thirteen and The Wrestler, and more recently landing a role on the US television vampire hit True Blood, which airs in the Emirates on OSN.
She still said it was a shock to see herself on promotional posters. "When I see the poster and see my name on it it's just unreal."
With roles in a Hollywood film littered with A-list talent and in one of the biggest shows on television, Wood hinted that she might consider another area of the entertainment industry at some point in the future. "I'd love to get more into music eventually," she said. "I just don't think I'm ready yet."
In The Ides of March, which will launch commercially across the UAE next week, Wood plays Molly Steams, an intern for a US politician on the campaign trail (George Clooney) who becomes embroiled in a sex scandal.
"I think it's a great movie," she said. "And not just because I'm in it. I've willingly sat through three of four screenings of it."
Due in the capital for today's film festival events is the British actress Lily Cole, who is set to appear on the red carpet for the screening of the coming-of-age drama The Moth Diaries, in which she stars.