by Amanda Nachman > Publisher | photos Rebecca Deprey & Ya-Hasing Lin

Rachel Wood has just wrapped up the best year of her life. She has managed to work on campus, party with her roommate, succeed in college, and jump start her acting career with three films. You might think she’s an upperclassman who has it all figured out, about to graduate. She’s only a freshman, though.

“I’m wrapped,” she says, still dressed in character from her most recent film. Hollow, an independent student film just finished shooting. In the film, Wood is one of the main characters, coincidently named Rachel. She plays a snobby, rich, popular student who struggles with an eating disorder. When reading for the part in a scene where her character hysterically breaks down, Wood knew she wanted the role.

“I’d ultimately like to act,” she said, “being in Hollow also gave me the chance to escape everything at school.”

The most surreal escape for Wood would have to be the set of the National Treasure sequel. She has one speaking line but you would be surprised just how much effort goes into a single line of such a production. An outfit and script were both hand delivered and Wood was given sheer princess treatment for the day. “There were assistants for everything. Literally I would go to throw something away and they’d be like ‘oh no, let me get that for you.’”

So how did this all start? “I was pretty much told that I should start acting when my theater arts teacher asked me to be in a play,” Wood said. Soon enough her summers were filled with musical theater camps, including Maryland Summer Centers for the Arts. Then in her junior year of high school she landed an agent. An agent?

“One of my good friends worked with her,” she said. “People think having an agent isn’t a good thing, but having an agent is a very good thing. They know that if you don’t get paid, they don’t get paid, so they look out for you.”

Her film career started the summer before her freshman year in college with an independent horror picture, Survival. It’s about twelve reality show stars, and soon enough things go wrong, “dun, dun, dun . . .” Wood sang in a foreboding tone.

“Imagine its 2 a.m. and freezing cold, with mosquitoes all over you and you’re in the middle of a forest,” she said of her introduction to film. “I’ve never been so cold in my life. But it was worth it.”

This summer Wood landed a different kind of gig. She took a bus to New York and auditioned for a Nike promotional video. After running on camera and giving them her shoe size, Wood got a call back saying she got the part. “It was just like National Treasure with all the big cameras and everything, but I was the only one there so there were like thirty crew members for just one talent.”

The time commitment for acting is sizable, and is especially difficult for Wood to juggle during the school year. Her biggest conflict came on Easter, during filming for the National Treasure sequel. She usually spends the holiday at home with her family. “It was the first time I got homesick,” Wood said.

Though she will soon be seen by people all across the nation, she is, by all indications, a normal college girl. She would rather talk about bar hopping with her roommate Liz or grumble about her next chemistry exam. When asked about National Treasure in front of a group of peers, she completely dodged the question. So why the big secret?

“It’s a big part of my life and I don’t want a lot of people to overreact to my being an actress, thinking I just want to be famous. To me it’s like wanting to be a teacher or engineer, its just about finding your niche. Since it’s hard to get into the industry, I had to find a back up but [acting] is what I’m supposed to do, I think. It’s not about being rich or famous, it’s about doing what I love.”

With her acting roles premiering soon, Wood might find her acting secret to be a little more difficult to hide. And who knows, maybe one day when she’s walking to class, rocking out to her IPod, she might be stopped for an autograph. But you’ll quickly realize that this actress has her head on her shoulders and for right now, she’s taking advantage of all that college life has to offer.

You’ll find that life for Wood isn’t all high-profile shoots and hordes of assistants. In fact, she’s an assistant to the assistant of the assistant dean of the agriculture dean. That’s right, three assistants. “I do all the petty work, answering phones, shredding papers, it’s just the things they don’t have time for,” she said. Wood works because she pays for her expenses at school, everything besides her tuition, which is paid for by a state grant and scholarships.

And she makes time for Trevor, her high school boyfriend who now attends Towson University. Wood did, however, get a taste of single life first semester.

“I guess I ‘Turkey Dropped’ him,” she said with a laugh. A turkey drop happens when a girl comes to college, is overwhelmed by the “options”, and goes home around Thanksgiving to break it off with her boyfriend. But now they are back together. It’s even on Facebook.

And then of course, there’s school. Wood’s major is dietetics, the study of food and nutrition. “I know I really want to be an actress so I should be a theater major, but then I have to come to my senses and realize that I need to have a back up plan,” she said. But dietetics isn’t completely far off from Wood’s passions. She enjoys her nutrition class so much that she read the textbook twice. She even admitted that, “Chem is pretty cool.”

So how does she find time to breathe? Wood might sacrifice a little bit of sleep and sanity to find her balance, but everything she does she does with a smile. Anything that seems a bit painful, Wood insisted, is worth it. Perhaps that’s the perfect attitude to have when the opportunity comes along to get a jump-start on your dream.