Madonna bootcamp may be over, but (presumably) Julia Garner’s road to being the best onscreen Madonna now has an Evan Rachel Wood-shaped barrier.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, Wood demonstrated the Madonna impression she perfected ahead of playing the star in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Roku’s new biopic on the parody songwriter. And by our lucky star, she sounds pretty damn good.
The Westworld star first offers up a brief vocal impression of the ‘80s icon, but proves to be more than up to the challenge when Fallon urges her to perform
“Material Girl” in her Madonna voice. From the nasally tenor to the over-enunciation, Wood give a masterclass in how she says Madonna used to “disarm” interviewers.
When Fallon asks Wood her initial reaction to nabbing the role, the actor shares she could barely believe it was real. “Honestly, like I thought I was gonna take a break the rest of the year, and then I got an email and the first thing I read is ‘You’ve been offered the role of Madonna,’ and I just burst out laughing like…. you just spit your drink out when you read that,” she says. “Like, you’re not expecting that as a Tuesday.”
Wood also says that she felt much more comfortable playing Madonna as a supporting role in a comedy, calling the prospect of starring as the singer in a biopic “way too much pressure.”
In Weird, Wood acts opposite Daniel Radcliffe, who stars as the titular, curly-headed performer. The first trailer for the film teases the first notes of “Like a Surgeon,” before revealing Radcliffe’s Yankovic with his accordion ready to perform for a boisterous crowd.
Although only Madonna’s parody song makes it into the teaser, Fallon also shares a still photo of Wood-as-Madonna, where the actor is decked out in a tutu, lace gloves, cross earrings... the “Like a Prayer” era special. Color us delightfully disarmed.