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Evan Rachel Wood is Jewish. She has described the music of The Beatles as being a major part of her life since her first family Christmas. Wood began her career appearing in several made-for-television films from 1994 and onwards, also playing an occasional role in the television series American Gothic. In 1996, Wood's parents separated and later divorced, and Wood moved with her mother to her mother's native Los Angeles County, California. Wood's first major screen role was in the low-budget 1998 film, Digging to China, which also starred Kevin Baconand Mary Stuart Masterson. Wood remembers the role as initially being "hard", but notes that it eventually led to her decision that acting is something she "might never want to stop doing". Wood's breakthrough movie role followed, with the somewhat controversial 2003 independent film Thirteen. The film garnered strong critical acclaim, and her performance was nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Actress - Drama and for a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Best Actress. During the time of Thirteen's release, Vanity Fair named Wood as one of the It Girls of Hollywood, and she appeared, along with the other actresses, on the magazine's July 2003 cover.

In 2005, she appeared in The Upside of Anger, opposite Kevin Costner and Joan Allen a well-reviewed film in which Wood played one of several sisters dealing with their father's absence. Her next two starring roles were in the dark independent films, Pretty Persuasion (also 2005), in which she played a villainous, sexually active high-schooler, and Down in the Valley, in which her character falls in love with an older man posing as a cowboy (Edward Norton). In September of 2006, she received Premiere magazine's "Spotlight Award for Emerging Talent". Also in 2006, she was described by The Guardian as being "wise beyond her years" and as "one of the best actresses of her generation".

In 2007, Wood's relationship with Marilyn Manson became public. The two met at a party at the Chateau Marmont Hotel; Wood has stated that she was attracted to Manson's frequent use of black eye liner and has described their relationship as "healthy and loving." Since dating Manson, Wood has made notable changes in her personal style; wearing vintage clothing and retro makeup, as well as coloring her hair black. Gossip columnists have commented that her new look is eerily similar to Manson's ex-wife, Dita Von Teese