Rise to Fame
She auditioned for the wrong part. Wood tried out for Lily Inglehart on Sex Education and didn't get it. The show offered her Aimee Gibbs instead, a role that looked like a supporting best-friend part until Season 2 turned it into one of the most quietly devastating sexual assault storylines British TV had done in years. She won a BAFTA for Best Female Comedy Performance in 2021 off the back of it, which is a strange category for a story about trauma but not an inaccurate one.
In the Spotlight
White Lotus Season 3 turned her into something Sex Education never quite managed: an American household name. As Chelsea, Walton Goggins' relentlessly hopeful girlfriend, she anchored the season's emotional center. SNL parodied her teeth. Goggins publicly called her a soulmate. She landed Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for Supporting Actress, running two major awards campaigns simultaneously for someone who'd spent years as a BAFTA winner nobody stateside had heard of.
Side Notes
She grew up in Stockport getting bullied for her gap teeth, trained at RADA, and graduated able to sing soprano and do flamenco. The teeth are now famous. She texted her agents pushing for a White Lotus audition, then spent time trying to talk herself out of sending the self-tape. Mike White watched it anyway and cast her on instinct. A couple years later she's at the Emmys in Alexander McQueen.