Evan Rachel Wood Reveals Prep for Playing Madonna In 'Weird: The Al Yankovic Story'

Actress Evan Rachel Wood recently shed light on how she prepared to play her role as Madonna in the comedy biopic "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story." The actress starred in the film alongside "Harry Potter" actor Daniel Radcliffe.

In the biopic, Wood played the role of music sensation Madonna. The artist's song, "Like a Virgin," was previously and quite famously given a comedic version by Alfred Matthew Yankovic, famously known as "Weird Al" Yankovic. The artist made his own version of the hit single, "Like a Surgeon," during that period.

Wood recently joined an interview during the movie premiere on Friday, revealing that she had to go through several of Madonna's music videos in order to give a stellar performance. She went on to call the icon a "genius" and said she loved playing the role.

Read on to learn more.

Wood did a lot of background work before the actress starred as music icon Madonna in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story." During the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, the cast of the show joined People as well as Entertainment Weekly in their photo and video studio.

There, the actress shed light on how she prepared to play Madonna in the film and described it as a "fun" project. She said, "This is one of the most fun projects I've worked on," says Wood. "I felt like, oh no, now I'm only gonna wanna do comedies because it was such a great experience. ... It was very hard to keep a straight face most of the time."

Wood also revealed that while piecing together Madonna in the film, everyone involved "had fun." "I spent a few weeks before shooting just bingeing Madonna interviews from the early '80s and her music videos and things," the actress said. "It was fun. It's always fun to get to go back and revisit and be like, 'Oh, right — she's a genius.' There's a reason why she's Madonna."

After filming ended, Wood revealed that she loved playing the character so much that she constantly made videos of herself in her trailer in the get-up. She reportedly wanted to take the costumes with her; however, she wasn't allowed to.

Wood said, "Every day it was just as fun as the first time I put it on. I would just constantly film myself dancing around and Dubsmashing in my trailer. But I don't think I got to keep anything."

According to the comedy biopic's director, Eric Appel, Madonna is yet to say anything about the movie or her portrayal by Wood. He revealed that he hoped she had a sense of humor and liked the film. Radcliffe, the show's star, said, "I second that. I'm sure. It's great — and you're playing her. Who could not love that?"

While talking to Entertainment Weekly during the movie premiere, Wood recalled when the film director, Appel, gave her specific instructions for a particular scene while she played the film's sociopathic version of Madonna. The 35-year-old recalled, "Eric directed me in one scene to be Madonna on a lot of cocaine."

Radcliffe described Madonna's character in the film as "very conniving" and claimed the artist was only using Yankovic to further her music career. He said, "She's very conniving and completely just using Weird Al, and everything she does is a pathological lie to get ahead in her career. So it was basically taking the genius that is Madonna and turning her into a sociopath that ends up running a drug cartel."

The "Harry Potter" actor further revealed that Wood was extremely committed to the character and "really got the tone and pace of the film, and it was very exciting." The actor continued, "Every character in this film starts as something you kind of recognize, and then you watch it explode into something truly insane."

The trailer for the parody biopic was released a few weeks back and gave some insight into how Radcliffe played the role of Yankovic. It showed the fictional user version of how the artist started making parodies of various songs starting from his popular 1983 "My Bologna" parody after The Knack's "My Sharon's" hit in 1979.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCNKdJ2CIJk

In the film, the song was such a hit that it brought several people to his doorstep, including Madonna. The artist, played by Wood, asked Yankovic to make a parody of her hit song, "Like a Virgin," and then got into a steamy affair with the artist.

The film premiered during the Toronto film festival on Friday and reportedly received an encouraging reception primarily due to the impressive performances by the actors. "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" was produced by Tango and Funny or Die and is slated to debut on The Roku Channel on November 4.