- 14 minutes ago
Can Shailene Woodley recognize her most iconic lines from Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars, and The Descendants? Plus, she reveals if she would sign on for a fourth Divergent film today.
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00:00What I remember from that film is very different than what this is.
00:03Thank you, Laura Dern, for so many things.
00:05It was so weird that we had to take our shirts off.
00:15It's like I'm on the outside looking in.
00:17I see this life and this moment, and it's so wonderful, but it doesn't quite belong to me.
00:22I have no idea.
00:23Did I do this movie?
00:25Is this a show?
00:27Maybe it's Jane?
00:28Is this Jane?
00:28It is Jane.
00:29It's Jane.
00:30Okay.
00:31So Jane from Big Little Lies.
00:33It's like I'm on the outside looking in.
00:35It was an interesting time in my life.
00:37I was 20, 10 years ago, so I was 24, and I had also just worked with Laura Dern on
00:42Fault in Our Stars, who became a very, very close friend of mine.
00:45I was kind of in this place where I was like, can I bring my full self to this character,
00:50or am I so depleted and don't really know who I am right now?
00:54So I was in this interesting personal crossroads, and I was on my way to India to kind of do
01:00this job out there that was unrelated to acting, and Laura Dern called me and was like, I know that
01:06you're feeling indecisive about this moment because you're trying to figure out what life direction you want to take.
01:11I really think that this is something that you should put a lot of attention and put effort into it
01:17because I think if you look back and you don't do this, you're going to ask yourself why you made
01:22that choice.
01:22And coming from someone like her, who I believe is so wise, I took her words to heart and I
01:28reread the script with such an openness, whereas the first time I had read it, I had read it kind
01:33of from a place of extreme exhaustion.
01:34The second time I read it with her words in my mind, I was like, there's no world that I
01:38can't be a part of this.
01:40And I just, like, I felt so grateful and honored to be a part of it.
01:43And it was life changing in the way that the sisterhood that all of us created in that show is
01:49genuine and is very real.
01:51And to this day, like, we are all there for one another.
01:54And that's just a rare thing to find in life in general.
01:56And in this industry, I think it's a little bit more rare sometimes.
01:59Yeah, thank you, Laura Dern, for so many things.
02:06You gave me a forever within, okay, this is like a line that will make me cry still.
02:10You gave me a forever within the number of days and for that I am eternally grateful.
02:15That's obviously Fault in Our Stars.
02:17Yeah, wow. That movie.
02:19And for that I am, I am eternally grateful.
02:24That was a long audition process.
02:26And I wrote John Green this very long love letter because I love to write letters.
02:31And I sent it to him and he responded very gracefully and was like,
02:34wow, thank you so much for your enthusiasm.
02:37However, I'm just the author.
02:38Like, I don't, I can't actually cast you in this movie.
02:41I have no control.
02:43John was on set almost every day and having him around,
02:46it was exciting pressure to, to honor the Hazel that he wrote.
02:51That was a rare opportunity to, to really lean into the relationship between the author of the novel
02:57and the characters that we were playing in the movie.
03:00I mean, Ansel Elgort is to this day, one of my best friends.
03:03I feel like he transcends the label of best friend.
03:05He's like family to me.
03:06I love him so, so deeply.
03:09And when we were doing the first Divergent movie, we really connected and we became sort of instant siblings.
03:15Like the dynamic between us is always very sweet and it was very supportive.
03:18And he would come over to my house and we would cook and just talk for hours after work.
03:22And so when I heard he was auditioning for Fault in Our Stars, I was like, oh, that's sweet.
03:26But like, obviously it's never going to happen because he's, you know, my brother in Divergent.
03:30Like there's no world where dot, dot, dot.
03:33And then he was cast.
03:34And he, you know, he's kind of the only person on earth who could have played Gus.
03:38And I think actually what made our relationship in that movie as tender as it was and as truly like
03:46unconditionally loving as it was,
03:48is Ansel and I do genuinely love one another.
03:51And it's so rare that you get to see love explored without intimacy.
03:56And although there is intimacy between Hazel and Gus, the core of it is just unconditional love.
04:02It's two people walking each other home.
04:04It's two people who have a desire to only be supportive to one another and make the other person feel
04:10a little less lonely in a chaotic world.
04:13But to say that it wasn't like, of course it was awkward when we had to do intimacy scenes together.
04:17Because I was like, I mean, I remember laughing in between takes a little bit together.
04:21Like, I know everything about you, everything about this is so weird that we have to take our shirts off.
04:27The test should tell us what to do.
04:29That has to be Divergent.
04:31So I feel like it's the only thing I've been tested in.
04:33The test should tell us what to do.
04:35I met with the director, Neil Berger, and the producers.
04:39It was right after I had done this movie called The Descendants.
04:42I read the first Divergent book.
04:43I don't think the other ones were out yet.
04:45And at the time, at the time I was really into survival skills and very much fell in line with
04:52Tris
04:53and I think who she was and what she was doing in that world.
04:56And so Neil and I really connected very quickly and deeply because of those basic subjects.
05:01And then it kind of went off from there.
05:02We did a lot of training for Divergent and it was really fun.
05:05In my heart I'm an athlete and so I love any type of challenge, especially if it's a physical challenge.
05:10We had an incredible stunt team and I still look at my stunt woman from that film in complete awe.
05:15Her name is Alicia Bayla Bailey and she made Tris look a lot more badass than I would have made
05:19Tris.
05:21Alright.
05:25Reyna's a fucked up hoe bag and you need to stay away from her and she's going to be a
05:30meth head
05:31and she's going to get used by stupid guys?
05:34She's a twat, say it?
05:36I said this?
05:39Secret life?
05:43Big Little Lies?
05:47Robots?
05:49Oh my God.
05:51Jesus, wow, say it.
05:53I mean fun but like, what?
05:55I have no clue.
05:57Oh my God, The Descendants, wow.
06:00I need to rewatch that movie.
06:02What I remember from that film is very different than what this is.
06:06I remember George Clooney on a beach.
06:08I don't remember saying this.
06:10She's a twat.
06:11Say it.
06:12I had seen Oh Brother Where Art Thou.
06:13Other than that I didn't know who George Clooney was.
06:15And so I met this man who was so gracious and so kind and so generous and so professional
06:23and thoughtful and treated every crew member exactly the same.
06:27And he really showed me what it takes to lead not just a film set but to like retain a
06:34center in the world of Hollywood.
06:38So I was very blown away by his leadership and his mentorship towards me.
06:42And then also working with Alexander Payne who the greatest note I've ever received to this day from a director
06:47was from him.
06:48And he came up to me and it was when we were doing a very emotional scene on The Descendants.
06:52And he just like sat down next to me and I remember I had to cry or I thought I
06:56had to cry.
06:56And he just looked me in the eyes and he was like, just be you, stop acting.
07:00And he walked away and I took my time and then what happened after that was what ended up being
07:06in the film.
07:07And I remind myself of that every single day I'm on a film set which is just like, stop trying.
07:13Like don't force, just allow.
07:18Maybe the way to help Chicago is going to be on the wall.
07:22That's one of the Divergent movies.
07:23Maybe the second one?
07:25Maybe it's Insurgent?
07:26Or maybe it's the first one.
07:27Maybe it's the third one.
07:28Maybe it's Legion.
07:30We got there.
07:31Maybe the way to help Chicago is going to be on the wall.
07:33Yeah, it was an odd way to end that series.
07:37I think it would be fun to explore what a fourth film could be.
07:41I did just read that Veronica Roth, the author, released another Divergent book.
07:46I haven't read it yet but I'm very excited for her.
07:48Maybe we'll do it when I'm in my 40s, you know.
07:51Tris comes back as a mom.
07:52And you know at the end of the book, the third book, which they had split into two films,
07:56there was this very interesting plot point that I was excited to kind of figure out as an actor playing
08:03Tris.
08:04Tris dies.
08:06That's the plot point.
08:08I think it's cool, you know, when a protagonist, like when their world ends.
08:12I always think it's, you know, there's some reality to doing as many things as Tris does physically
08:18and escaping death so many times to kind of then seeing what happens to her.
08:24And I don't know, there's something about it that I think is very poetic.
08:31I'd like to think that there's more to a person than just one thing.
08:37Oh gosh.
08:39I have no idea.
08:41Is this a show?
08:42It's a film?
08:45Um, Spectacular Now?
08:48Okay, I do remember.
08:49I'd like to think that there's more to a person than just one thing.
08:52I'm really drawn to authenticity, and authenticity can look a million different ways.
08:58Anything that stirs something within me, whether it's action and that stirs sort of this exciting, like,
09:04challenge of working with a green screen, or it's a character that really moves me on the page
09:09and makes me feel something when I'm reading it, or a location that a film is set in that adds,
09:15like,
09:15a whole new layer of something to respond to.
09:21Those are sort of the pathways for me understanding, like, or getting, I guess, receiving butterflies.
09:26And a lot of what I do feels quite instinctual, and so I'm drawn to things that are authentic,
09:31no matter how strange, odd, or small, or grounded that authenticity presents itself as.
09:39I really would love to do some comedies.
09:41I love to laugh.
09:43Um, and I've done one comedy, and it was so much fun, and it's really nice to go home every
09:49day
09:49and just be like, wow, like, I laughed all day.
09:52I feel great.
09:53Instead of going home and feeling exhausted from crying or screaming or attacking someone.
10:02Take your pills, ignore the clowns, fight the jackals.
10:05That is from Misanthrope.
10:06They renamed it.
10:08It was originally titled Misanthrope.
10:09It's now titled, um, To Catch a Killer.
10:13Take your pills, ignore the clowns, fight the jackals.
10:17Oh my gosh, this movie.
10:18We started this, we started production pre-COVID, and then obviously COVID came, and so the location changed.
10:26It originally took place in the summer in Atlanta, and it was moved to Montreal in the winter.
10:31Which, filming in Montreal in the winter, a film that predominantly was night shoots, during COVID was no easy task.
10:39It's definitely the hardest project I've ever been a part of, simply by the nature of the elements that we
10:45were presented with.
10:46We were doing this scene, and I had to yell.
10:48And it was, I think, like three or four in the morning, and it was negative however many degrees.
10:53And the director came up to me, and he's like, Shay, like, I need you to yell.
10:56And I was like, I can't, I can't even move, like, my lips are frozen.
10:59I can't yell, because I can't move.
11:02And we had to sit in the car and thaw out so we could do the scene again.
11:09Find her father.
11:10He was leading a group to the bunker to start the world.
11:13You will not let her be afraid of people.
11:15That would be paradise.
11:17You will not let her be afraid of people.
11:20I think surviving without community would be very, very difficult.
11:24And so I have no clue how I would do in that situation.
11:27I went to school for herbalism, so I know, I do know quite a lot about, like, the natural world
11:32of healing.
11:33And when I was younger, as I mentioned earlier, I really, I was super into survival skills.
11:37I did a lot of survival courses, took a lot of courses on foraging and understanding kind of wild plants.
11:42I loved it.
11:43There was, like, this connection to the earth that I found at the time very grounding and very interesting.
11:50And also, like, having survival skills in the city and understanding kind of, like, the nature.
11:56I'm in a very different place now.
11:57I live in a big city.
12:00I'm, like, very dependent on turning on the water.
12:02I don't really think about it, you know.
12:03But at the time when I was younger, I was sort of living in the mountains in a small little
12:08cabin.
12:08And I loved the fact that I could understand, like, the way that the world worked around me and felt
12:13like I had some tools for survival.
12:15Who knows if they would help today.
12:21There wasn't, or there was a crash.
12:23I was left unconscious.
12:24I couldn't remember anything until I saw you tonight.
12:30Three women?
12:33Oy.
12:34I have no idea.
12:37Oh, this was the Greek film.
12:39This was the killer heat.
12:40No.
12:41What is it?
12:41What?
12:42What was this?
12:43Oh.
12:44The last letter from your lover.
12:46There was a crash.
12:50I was left unconscious.
12:52This was, like, very early on in me trying to understand the world of producing.
12:55For me now, like, producing is so exciting because so often, because of the nature of making a movie and
13:02the amount of money that it requires and the amount of people that are involved,
13:06every now and then, I feel like the core identity of a film can change for bureaucratic reasons.
13:12For me, I see my role as a producer as someone who's just kind of like an overarching protector of
13:16the integrity of the story that we're telling.
13:19And, obviously, movies kind of always shapeshift and change form, and so it makes it so exciting to me.
13:25It's the only art form that requires thousands of people sometimes to make one particular product.
13:30It takes so many people from so many walks of life all doing this weird, like, being involved in this
13:36strange circus where you're away from your family, you're away from your friends, you're working 15, 16 hour days.
13:41It's such an odd lifestyle.
13:44And, to me, a great producer is somebody who, like, honors the entire organism, who doesn't just focus on particular
13:51parts of it.
13:51And that's what I love from kind of the producer—being in a producerial role.
13:57Oh, all right.
14:00I'm late.
14:06I'm late?
14:07I feel like this could be so many things.
14:09Oh, I'm late because she's pregnant.
14:11Because she's late on her period.
14:12Right.
14:13Okay, secret life.
14:15I'm late.
14:15I think the reason why teen dramas did so well in that, like, 2007 to 2015 world was Instagram wasn't
14:25a thing yet.
14:26I think Facebook was around, but Facebook was still—it was booming, but it still wasn't accessible.
14:33Most people didn't have iPhones on our set, on the Secret Life set, until the end of the season, or
14:38the end of the series.
14:39People's attention spans were still higher.
14:42People were going home and turning on the TV and watching something because they weren't on their phones in these
14:47individualized spaces.
14:48We don't have that same, like, get on a couch and gossip together about a TV show that we used
14:53to have,
14:53because now we're all just kind of on our phones gossiping about everything and anything.
14:57And I think it's diluted a little bit the experience of the weekly entertainment that comes in from a TV
15:04show like that.
15:04I miss it!
15:12We'll see you then.
15:14We'll see you next time.
15:16We'll see you next time.
15:16Bye!
15:17Bye!
15:17Bye!
15:18Bye!
15:19Bye!
15:19Bye!
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