Woodley hopes to bend fame to her own terms
Shailene Woodley calls fame “the F-word.”
“I’m fine with the other F-word,” the 21-year-old actress says. “But that F-word is too much.”
She better get ready. An actress since age 5, Woodley earned notice – and an Independent Spirit Award – for playing the teen daughter of George Clooney’s character in 2011’s “The Descendants.” She can be seen in another indie, “The Spectacular Now.” She may also play Mary Jane in “The Amazing Spider-Man” franchise. And Woodley has just wrapped work on a project that could bring her “Twilight”-sized fame.
“I have a very, very fun life outside of this industry, so if anything were to not happen or if things got to be way too overwhelming … I will go and be an herbalist,” she says, folding her lithe frame and bare feet beneath her as she sips a cappuccino made from ground mushrooms. “I never want to stop. I want to act until the day that I’m not here anymore. But the day it becomes boring is the day I’ll quit.”
That’s not likely. Not only is Woodley “a crazy positive person by nature,” she just finished filming her most empowered role yet. She plays the lead in “Divergent,” the big-screen adaptation of the young-adult novel that’s been compared to “The Hunger Games.” And when it hits theaters next year, Woodley may have to leave her anonymity behind.
“I’ll never, ever think of myself as famous, even if I ever get to the point of George Clooney … because I think you might go crazy if you start referring to yourself in those terms,” she says, considering a future marked by paparazzi and private entrances. “But the main thing for me is just, I’m me, and I live such an amazing life which I’m so lucky for and I have such amazing friends and the perfect family … that I don’t see anything changing.”
She’s already playing by her own rules where she can. She often skips makeup on red carpets to feel more like herself. When she does submit to full regalia, she tucks a favorite crystal necklace beneath her designer dress. She also talks about herbs and the environment every chance she gets.
“In middle school, I became a really avid environmentalist,” she explains.
During a recent appearance on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” Woodley showed off some echinacea flowers she picked while walking through New York City. During this interview, she shares the vials of herbal tinctures she typically travels with and offers a visitor an herbal cappuccino like the one she’s drinking.
“I was able to talk about something that I love on a show that generally doesn’t talk about things like that, so there’s ways to have fun with it,” she says of her Fallon interview. “It’s cool to be in a position where I can maybe start shifting the views on what it means to be a young actor and what it means to be in this industry.”
Her grounded nature and ability to effortlessly reflect adolescent angst onscreen is why director James Ponsoldt chose Woodley for “The Spectacular Now.”
She plays Aimee Finicky, a shy, smart high-school senior who develops a relationship with classmate Sutter Keely (Miles Teller), a popular hard-partying kid who takes life as it comes. Though they appear to be ill-matched, they help each other grow past self-imposed boundaries.
Ponsoldt says Woodley reminds him of Sissy Spacek, Barbara Hershey and Debra Winger – women who feel “a responsibility to play their characters with the highest intelligence … to not let themselves be cheapened or used as poor depictions of womanhood.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2013 at 3:34 PM.