Her teeth are on everyone’s lips.
Aimee Lou Wood addressed the “White Lotus” fandom’s commentary about her teeth in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“These people live in Hollywood,” the British actress said about her American co-stars. “I live in my little flat in South East London, and I’m so British in my sensibility that I wasn’t sure how to handle being around so many people who are so front-footed and confident.”
“All I ever do is take the piss out of myself. Even the way [‘White Lotus’ fans] are talking about me and my teeth — that I don’t have veneers or Botox — it feels a bit rebellious,” she added.
Wood, who plays Walton Goggins’ younger girlfriend, Chelsea, in Season 3 of the HBO series, has said that creator Mike White wanted her to use her Manchester accent instead of an American one for the role.
She told The Sun last week that her teeth have always given away that she isn’t American.
“It’s the teeth! No Americans have my teeth. I think that genuinely is one of the things,” Wood said.
The “Sex Education” star continued, “I played an American in a play in Chicago and afterwards this guy in the bar, he was talking to me and he went: ‘I knew it. I knew it. Your accent was great but I knew you weren’t American. You just don’t look American.’”
Wood opened up more about how her teeth have shaped her self-confidence since she was a kid in a March 3 Instagram video.
“A big thing for me growing up was my mouth,” she said, “because it was the thing that everyone pointed out, and it was the thing that made me different.”
Wood explained that she “had never seen an actress on TV with teeth like mine” until Mick Jagger’s daughter, Georgia May Jagger, began appearing in commercials in 2009.
“When Georgia Jagger did ‘get the London look’ and she had the gap teeth, that was a huge moment,” said Wood. “I thought ‘No, I am going to put red lipstick on and I am going to draw attention to it.’”
“Playing loads of different characters has really helped with my self-confidence surrounding beauty. I’ve had to surrender control a lot,” she added. “The more than you can surrender, the more beautiful you feel.”
Wood could be considered an outlier in Hollywood considering many in the spotlight have gotten veneers.
Dr. Bill Dorfman, who has done dental work on Hugh Jackman, Eva Longoria, Anne Hathaway and more, told The Hollywood Reporter last year, “I’ve treated most of the peak A-list celebrities in town, and you’d never know they have veneers.”
“The worst thing in the world for me is if someone walks up to you and says, ‘Oh my God, your veneers look great.’ I don’t want people to know you have them,’” he added.
But Wood has held out on changing her teeth despite the pressures of Hollywood. In 2020, she told Stylist UK her teeth have never limited her acting opportunities.
“It’s completely in my head,” Wood explained. “It’s a myth I’ve told myself. I had it in my brain that I’m not conventional-looking enough and that’s a mental barrier I’ve had to overcome.”
Wood also shared that she’s become a role model thanks to her teeth.
“I’m getting hundreds of messages from people going, ‘Oh my god, you’ve got teeth like mine. Now I go to school and people think I’m cool because I look like Aimee,”‘ she said.
