Ryan Murphy Recalls Evan Rachel Wood’s Incredible Acting Trick 20 Years After Running With Scissors

This October marks 20 years since Ryan Murphy’s directorial debut Running With Scissors. Based on Augusten Burroughs’ memoir of the same name, young Augusten faces a challenging childhood that leads to him living with his mother’s unorthodox therapist and his strange family.

At the premiere of Murphy’s FX thriller The Shards, he spoke with Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado about reuniting with Evan Rachel Wood in this new project for the first time since Running With Scissors. “Amazing,” he recalled about Wood who played the rebellious Natalie in the film. “I just think Evan is one of our best and I'd always wanted to work with her again. Now she's a mother and an adult, which I can't believe, because when I first directed her she was younger than these kids. I think Evan was 16.”

In The Shards, Wood plays Liz Schaffer, Debbie’s unhinged mother who’s lavish lifestyle isn’t as perfect as it seems. “I just offered her the part and we did a Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface tribute. I got to direct her again and it was just like old time,” Murphy said. “She's a wonderful person and a wonderful actress. It was an honor and she was exactly the same as she was then, like, ‘Yes, where do I go?’”

Wood has so much control over her craft that it goes beyond crying on cue. “Evan is an amazing actress because if you ask her to cry she can say, ‘Which eye?’” revealed Murphy. “Like the first time I directed her in her very first scene, I said, ‘Okay, you got to cry.’ And she said to me, at 16, ‘Which eye?’ And I said, ‘The left?’ because that's where the camera was and she said, ‘Got it.’ And on the second take, beep. One tear. So she's the same. Lovely.”

Watch the first two episodes The Shards when they premiere August 5 on FX and streaming the next day on Hulu.