Aimee Lou Wood on Playing Sally Bowles in CABARET: 'It's Overwhelming in the Best Way'

Aimee Lou Wood has decribed taking on the role of Sally Bowles as "overwhelming in the best way". Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour the Sex Education actor, who is currently in previews for the role, revealed that she has wanted to play the role since she was ten years old.

Speaking of being back on stage she said: "I love being on stage, I love the catharsis, having the audience there and it being so immediate".

Wood noted the differences between being on stage and acting for television, where "your perfectionism can be accomodated more so...I have to remember what it's like being on stage".

Wood reveals that she can get "quite self-critical" and listens to a lot of Eckhart Tolle, the German-born spiritual teacher and self-help author, about the power of positive message, saying "My ego is attached to being the perfect Sally Bowles".

Speaking of her shyness as a child she revealed that dancing in the show has been challenging, calling it "incredibly emotional...I was on the verge of tears... I feel so vulnerable".

"Expressing myself through my body, I've always found challenging because of my relationship with my body".

Wood has been open about her struggles with anorexia and bulimia, stemming, she said, from attitudes in her home town of Stockport where "men found it acceptable to comment on womens' bodies all the time" and that she "would never hear women say 'do not talk about my body'- it made me incredibly self-conscious". Her body-confidence was also knocked further after being branded "one of the bad movers" at RADA, her drama school.

"I was so desperate to get to London...I just wanted to get out of that way of thinking. I found it so stressful".

Aimee Lou Wood is playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret at The Kit Kat Club

Listen to the full interview here at 22 minutes.

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner