Aimee Lou Wood reveals how semi-autobiographical new series helped her embrace her neurodiversity

I’m meeting Sex Education and The White Lotus star Wood in a London hotel, having only ever interviewed her remotely thanks to her back-to-back filming schedule. And it quickly becomes apparent that to the effervescent actress, everything is comparable to a romantic comedy – it’s how she has always lived, seeing herself through the lens of heroines ranging from the aforementioned Ryan, through to Cathy from Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Now Wood, 31, has poured her heart and soul into her debut writing project, the gorgeously original BBC sitcom Film Club, about a young woman called Evie who has a breakdown and refuses to leave her mum’s house, only venturing to the garage once a week to put on a themed film club where she and her best friend Noa dress up as the characters while trying to work out if their feelings for each other are romantic or platonic.

Film Club isn’t wholly autobiographical, Wood says. But she definitely shares traits with Evie, and squeals again when I say it reminded me of 1998’s Little Voice, in which Jane Horrocks plays a shy woman who comes to life when impersonating Hollywood stars.

“Oh my God, I’m so glad you said that!” says Wood. “Growing up, Little Voice was my dream part. I was always doing impressions. I was very shy, but in private I’d be talking to myself, and dressing up in wigs and creating my own little mini universe. It gave me calm.

“I didn’t even know what my real voice was because I’d be constantly doing accents and different voices. I would sing my thoughts; I found it easier to express myself that way. All of a sudden I could talk to people and find friends. It’s how I learned to express myself.”

Earlier this year, Wood revealed she has been diagnosed with ADHD and is undergoing further tests to see if she is autistic. She says now, “When I watched Film Club back, I realised I was telling myself loads of things with the neuro-spiciness. Basically, it’s about a girl who’s working out she’s autistic, and I didn’t know that about myself when I was writing it. It was all subconscious.”

Born in Stockport, Wood suffered body dysmorphia, bulimia and social anxiety as a teenager but went to Rada despite her lack of self-esteem. Set on becoming a serious actress, she found herself labelled as “funny” and “quirky”, which she says she found “a little bit hurtful” at the time.

After graduating she landed her first major role on Netflix series Sex Education, which became a surprise break-out hit, winning an International Emmy for best comedy and a Bafta for Wood as best female comedy performance.

She played Aimee Gibbs, the lovable girl whose offbeat dress sense and humour made her a fan favourite: even more so when her journey deepened in the second series, as she dealt with the ramifications of a sexual assault. “Everyone was talking about how strange and offbeat I was in Sex Ed,” says Wood, “but I didn’t think I was playing the character in that way. I was just reading the lines. To me, it was just how she would express herself, but everyone was slapping their thighs and finding it really funny. When you’ve only lived with yourself, that’s your normal.”

The success of Sex Education led to other roles for Wood, including the BBC comedy Daddy Issues with David Morrissey, and Netflix drama Toxic Town, in which she played a bereaved mum opposite Jodie Whittaker. But her career went truly stratospheric when she landed a role in the third series of Netflix drama The White Lotus, which this year earned her an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series.

Yet again, Wood found herself labelled as “quirky” and “funny” when that wasn’t her intention. She explains: “I did a run across the beach and the camera guy was like, ‘That choice was so genius, that is exactly how Chelsea would run,’ and I was like, ‘That wasn’t a choice, that’s my run!’”

Now, with the cathartic experience of writing Film Club and having received her ADHD diagnosis, Wood is finally embracing her funny bones. “At drama school, there was such a value placed on being a very serious actor, and I didn’t like people finding me funny,” she admits. “Now, I realise it’s a great thing because tragedy and comedy are so close together. That’s life, isn’t it?

“I was filming in Poland when the director came over to tell me I had an Emmy nomination, and I stepped in dog poo a second later. Nothing is ever all fantastic or all terrible.”

The idea for Film Club came about during lockdown, when she and friend Ralph Davis decided to start writing together, something they had dreamed of since meeting at Rada. But the writing proved tricker than she expected: her fantasy of renting a house in Cornwall, with rain lashing down while writing “like Virginia Woolf” never came to fruition, as she was too busy filming The White Lotus in Thailand.

“I thought we were going to have way more free time, but we didn’t have any,” she says. “I’d be coming back to my hotel room from a day of filming and having Zooms about Film Club. That White Lotus world was such a bubble, there was no escape, and I find it hard to focus on two things at once.

“I was so ready to throw myself into writing when I came back to England. Ralph and I have always talked about the fact that rom-coms now are all about simmering tension and non-verbal feelings. We really missed those kind of chatterbox, neurotic characters falling in love, like in When Harry Met Sally. We wanted to make something nostalgic.”

Grounding herself back in England was beneficial for Wood’s mental health, as she found the attention following White Lotus overwhelming –especially when she first started going to the US for work meetings and awards ceremonies and found the industry’s polished professionalism hard to handle. “Everyone’s so good at small talk,” she explains. “I would try to match that, but it wouldn’t quite work. I’d think, ‘They’re not going to get me’.

“I felt like a robot because I was thinking, ‘I mustn’t be weird’. I look back at pictures from that time and the light isn’t behind my eyes. I think, ‘Who are you?’, and it freaks me out.”

Wood did have support, though: she’s close to her mum Alison and friends from childhood, and stays in touch with actors like Sex Education co-star Ncuti Gatwa, the most recent Doctor Who. “Ncuti and I were at the Met Gala together,” says Wood. “We didn’t go to the after-parties, we went to my hotel room and were like, ‘What just happened?’

“We did this mad show in Wales in the middle of nowhere, and for most of us it was our first TV job, so it just felt like summer camp. Then we blinked and suddenly we were with all these Hollywood people who knew what they were doing, and it was scary. Internally we didn’t feel any different, but we were expected to know how to do things.”

Her Film Club co-stars include Suranne Jones as Evie’s mum Suz, Nabhaan Rizwan as her best friend Noa, and Owen Cooper, who, at the tender age of 15, won the Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a limited series for his role in Netflix drama Adolescence – “One moment Owen and I were in Prestwich eating Quavers, then suddenly we were both doing all these fancy things. The contrast was mad.”

The chaos of her sudden fame means Wood has to take care of her mental health, because her old feelings of insecurity come back to haunt her at times of pressure. But she says that having so many fans that connect with her has given her a new outlook on life.

“It gives me confidence on the days where sometimes that little demon comes back up,” she says. “I get it so bad after social situations: obsessive, repetitive thoughts of, ‘Did I really say that? That was weird. Why did you say that?’, but then I think of those people who thank me for being weird because it means they can embrace their weirdness.

“I still have moments when I’m really overwhelmed and stressed and I feel it coming back up, like, ‘I could just take back control by not eating…’ Then I go, ‘No, I have to [eat]’ and I catch that and try not to get burnt out.”

Her diagnosis has been a huge relief: because now she realises her neurodiversity is a “superpower” that deepens her friendships and makes her brilliant at her job.

“I don’t need everyone to understand me,” she says. “The people that get me, get me. The anxiety and feelings of inadequacy come from trying to meet other people’s expectations, but what’s so moving is that when I unmask, other people do too. The exhaustion and shame comes from covering things up, but it’s freeing when you say, ‘My brain doesn’t work like that’.

“Growing up, I felt a deep need to be ‘normal’, but then I realised all my favourite people, all the people I admired, were weird – even my favourite characters, like Jane Eyre.

“Acting has shifted how I feel about myself. I used to hate how my face was so expressive but going into my 30s, I don’t want to miss out on life because I’m worried about how I’m being perceived. Beauty is internal and I’m my own human-shaped self, and that’s OK. I don’t need to fit into any box.”

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Film Club airs at 10pm on BBC Three and iPlayer on Tuesday 7th October.

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