This will be an easy introduction to write, because I know virtually nothing about Shailene Woodley other than she turned 20 this week and is best know for her starring role as Amy Juergens in four seasons (and counting) of ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." Oh, and she's pretty much a lock for a best supporting actress nomination at every awards show for the next six months due to her shockingly good work in director Alexander Payne's THE DESCENDANTS.
In it, Woodley plays Alexandra King, daughter and occasional verbal sparring partner to George Clooney, who plays her father. She absolutely holds her own in several toe-to-toe conflicts with Clooney, with a confidence I never would have expected from someone in their first major film role. Woodley is an articulate, intelligent, eager to learn young woman who has some interesting ideas about acting, becoming a better student of film history, and where she goes from here. Every so often you meet someone who you just know is going to get a whole lot more impressive as the years go on because of their talent, and this was one of those times for me. Once you see THE DESCENDANTS, which begins its release schedule this weekend, you'll know exactly what I mean. Please enjoy, Shailene Woodley…
Capone: Shailene, it’s good to meet you.
Shailene Woodley: Hey, it’s nice to meet you.
Capone: You are probably sick of answering all of the same questions over and over again!
SW: No, it’s fine. It’s fun actually, because I’m very passionate about it. I should say, sometimes I get new questions that really excite me.
Capone: That’s good. Hopefully I’ll throw a couple of those in there.
SW: Yeah, I’m sure you will.
Capone: You’ve done a lot over the last 10 years with your career. Do you feel like you were deeply changed by the experience of making THE DESCENDANTS, maybe more so than anything you have done before?
SW: Absolutely. I think in every era of life you have some sort of awakening within yourself, and this was that of my young-adult era. Spending four months in Hawaii was absolutely transformational. For me, those islands are extremely spiritual and energetically just so positive. I immediately became centered and grounded. There are more chickens than there are humans, so the abundance of nature takes you immediately out of that materialistic bubble. Sometimes you can drown in living in a city being in the modern 21st century.
But getting to know Alexander Payne, who has become one of my top five favorite human beings on this planet, and working with George who, yeah,, he’s a good actor, but he’s a super human. I mean that man is just so phenomenal and spectacular, and working with all of these other phenomenal actors and being on a happy set with a good environment. That is so rare. The entire experience over all I could just rave about.
Capone: Yeah. Do you see yourself going back there on your own?
SW: Hawaii? Oh, for sure. We filmed two years ago--almost two years ago--and I’ve been back maybe five times since. I spent the month of February there and the month of August there. I’m moving there next year--I’m just getting a teeny-tiny studio with a friend. Yeah, it’s definitely home.
Capone: I guess so, yeah.
SW: My body might have been born in L.A., but my heart was born in Hawaii.
Capone: I really liked the history lessons that we get about the islands that we learn through this tale of the land ownership; I was fascinated by that stuff, because I have never seen that before in a movie. Did you immerse yourself in the culture and the history beyond the touristy stuff?
SW: Oh my gosh, beyond. George and I arrived a month ahead of time and then Nick Krause who plays Sid came two and a half weeks ahead and then Amara [Miller] came a week before, and it was not only to bond and get to know each other, but it was to take field trips around the island and get to know our new home.
Hawaii has a very different vibe. I guess they vibrate on a different level than a lot of places that I’ve ever been exposed to. The freeways don’t have maximum speed limits; they have minimum speed limits, because people go too slow. I mean it’s a very slow paced, laid back, atmosphere, and Alexander really wanted us to feel it. In all of our down time, we really didn’t have any, because we were hiking or kayaking or snorkeling or jumping off of things or climbing up waterfalls or going in places that said “No trespassing.” We did many, many things just to connect with the islands.
Capone: Was that time meant to be a bonding experience to make your all feel like a family when the cameras finally were rolling?
SW: Absolutely. I mean everything Alexander does is based on authenticity and originality, but especially authenticity. He really wanted us to feel the vibration of being Hawaiian and living there and then, yeah, getting to know one another, because our scenes are very vulnerable, and there’s a sense of comfort that needs to be accomplished. George has no pretense and neither did any of us. Everyone was super down to earth and super humble, and I think the one word that encompasses all of our feelings is gratitude. We were all just so exceedingly grateful to be there, including George, and that really opened up a lot of outlets for communication between us, and it was kind of an instantaneous, organic bond.
Capone: It absolutely feels authentic. Your character is interesting, because she probably goes through the biggest transformation of anyone in the film. She’s still a teenager at the beginning of the film and she’s obnoxious and bratty and swearing a lot and you assume that’s how she’s going to be until the end.” But seeing her mother in a coma seems to snap her out of that behavior to a certain degree. How did you play that? In your mind, why did that transformation happen? Tell me about that emotional journey for you.
SW: When you have words as brilliantly written as Alexander's, for me, I really didn’t do any acting at all. I would like to consider myself a professional listener in this situation. If you showed up to work with your lines memorized and ready to be present to the truthness of the moment,--“truthness,” wow, that’s a new word for today--to the truth of the moments, we were working with such phenomenal actors the entire time that if you were present and aware and you listened to what they were saying--Alexander’s words through their mouths--it would naturally evoke such strong emotion within you that you really didn’t have to think about, “Oh, in this scene, I’m supposed to be angry,” or “In this scene, I’m supposed to be sad, because this is where the arc of the storyline or character is.” It was just kind of an organic process.
I never went to school for acting, so I didn’t study theater. I took acting classes, but that’s completely different. So I’m the worst when it comes to breaking down a script. I don’t know how to do it. Halfway through filming, Alexander said something, and I was like “Oh yeah, you're right. That’s what this movie is about. Okay.” I’m just not good with breaking it down, so for me I spend very little time thinking about the character and more time just trying to be honest and present to the situation.
Capone: Do you think then that if you are ever in something with lesser actors that your performance becomes less, because you're working with what they're giving you?
SW: No, I don’t think that’s true. I’ve been fortunate to work with I mean amazing actors my whole life, but for me it's the truth, so whether you are a "good actor” or a not so great actor, the words should naturally evoke emotion. George always says, and I fully agree with it and I think it’s such a great quote to kind of take forward as I continue to act, you can make a bad movie out of a good script, but you cannot make a good movie out of a bad script. Also I think words are the ultimate fuel for emotion and then obviously the actors you're working with are the tools in which the words are expressed, but if you are a professional listener, you can listen to the words and disregard the emotion of the other person.
Capone: What did you learn from working with George Clooney?
SW: I learned how to be a better human being from him. Acting-wise, I’m sure there is a lot that I learned, nothing that I could actually formulate into a conversation or into words, because I think it’s more subconscious learning that I took in from him. But on a human level, he’s a superhuman. He is such a spectacular man. I keep repeatedly using the word “superhuman,” but that really is the best word to describe him. He’s so brilliant and so generous and giving and humble and down to Earth and he has everything and yet you would kind of never know it if you met him and you didn’t know who he was. He has everything materialistically, but not everything humanly, because he cannot go to a party and just do what he wants to do without being smothered by the public, and I think the way he approaches life is with strong integrity and with gratitude and I think a lot of people lack those two adjectives. I could go on about the beauty of him. He’s just an amazing man.
Capone: Did Alexander ever tell you what it was about your audition that he liked and wanted in this film?
SW: No. Alexander and I connected on a really human level, similar to how George and I did. I mean it’s funny, because I’m only 19 years old, but we have very similar I would say core values and outlooks on life, and Alexander Payne is a magical man. I don’t know if I said that earlier in this interview or not, but he really is and he casts people based on who they are. So I think he liked the way I played the character and enjoyed my audition, but he casts people for a character, because they are the character. I didn’t go through my whole drug and alcohol phase in high school like Alexandra did, but I did have my angsty period when I was 14 or 15 years old, and even if I don’t express myself the way Alexandra does, I think there’s definitely some vibrational level that is similar, and that’s why I was cast.
Capone: Speaking of learning, Amara, who plays your sister, I think this is her first movie, right?
SW: Yeah, she had never even been in a school play. She never wanted to be an actor, but she was a friend of a friend of Alexander, and he said, “Hey, do you want to audition?” She was like “What does that mean?” They were like, “Just read these lines.” She’s like, “Okay.”
Capone: Did you find that she clung to you a little and leaned on you, just for advice or security?
SW: Absolutely. The beauty of Amara Miller is she is a 10-year-old--I wouldn’t say a 10 year old going on 15, because that’s not true--but she’s a very wise 10 year old and she picks up on things really easily. We got so lucky. Alexander was so lucky to find her, because she wasn’t jaded by this industry and she had never taken an acting class, so she didn’t know what was right and what was wrong, and we'd be filming a scene and she would start scratching her nose incessantly or yawn in the middle of the scene, and on any other set that would be like, “What are you doing? We're filming right now and you are yawning in the middle of the scene.” But it worked so well for her character, because she was Scottie King as Amara Miller, and she could cry. The 10 year old could cry, who had never acted before, could cry in the blink of an eye. So we were so fortunate and we definitely had that whole big sister/little sister thing where I was like “Scram, Amara, I need my space,” and she would be like, “Play with me! Play with me!” But it was really fun.
Capone: And then Nick Krause, who plays a really interesting character. I never quite knew where he was going. What did that character meant to Alexandra?
SW: I think he was really there for control. Her life was falling apart, and she needed one thing that she could control and I think it was Sid, I don’t even know if it was a conscious decision, but I think subconsciously it was nice for her to have some stable element in her life. Her dad was kind of still unstable. Her little sister was kind of screwed up and unstable. Her mom was off-the-charts unstable, so to have that core guy--no matter how aloof he was--and be able to control him and ay whatever you wanted to say in front of him, I think it was a bit of a selfish thing, definitely about control.
Capone: The scene where Alexandra and her sister first come to the hospital to see their mother, George has you just wait outside and he yells at this comatose woman in bed. That’s the freakiest thing I have seen in a very long time, someone with that much anger yelling at what’s essentially a dead body. And then you come in and you start to do the same thing, but then he shuts you down. What were those scenes like to shoot?
SW: I wasn’t dreading them at all. I was really excited. Actually, that was the one scene after seeing the film that I was like “Wow.” It was challenging to film just because seeing your mom in a coma and getting to that place and having so much built-up anger like you just said, but also so much love and so much hurt and the want to have her be alive. There are so many different emotions going through her head, but it was beautifully written. Again, we kind of let the words drive us through that scene, and Patti who was the actress who played the mom…
Capone: I looked her up because I'd never seen her before. She's beautiful, which you would never know from this movie.
SW: She is stunning, yeah. Patti Hastie. She was hired technically as a background extra, because she has no lines in the film, but after seeing her dedication, I think she’s the most underrated actor in that entire film if not the best. It’s so hard to not have your eyes move or your nose twitch while George Clooney or I or anyone else is yelling at your face, or he was kissing her lips. She was such a dedicated fellow co-star, because if we are in an emotional state, and she does one thing as to move her nose a little bit subconsciously then we have to cut and then we personally have to get back into that emotional state. Walking into the room and seeing her lay there with the tubes connected and the makeup on with her mouth open, foaming, and crusty, it wasn’t really hard to get to that emotional state, because the image along with the words. And we were actually filming in a real hospital, which in its own has its own bizarre energy; it kind of just led us there.
Capone: Did you ever think as you were shooting this “I don’t know how I would handle this situation,” or “I would handle this situation so differently than she is.”
SW: No, it actually didn’t really cross my mind. I didn’t really put much thought into how I personally would handle the situation in my own words. I put a lot of thought into how it would affect me if I were Alexandra and if I had had Alexandra’s childhood.
Capone: It might clutter your thoughts if you start thinking “Wait, I would do this differently.”
SW: Yeah, and I only want to bring positivity in my life, so I try to only manifest that.
Capone: The other scene that really struck me was the one where you're in the pool and you're like crying underwater. Tell me about shooting that. Was that how it was scripted, or did you kind of come up with that?
SW: It was scripted that she resorts to the water and distorts her face, and I loved that that’s all it said, because that kind of gave me the freedom to do as I wanted.
Capone: “Distorts her face”?
SW: Yeah. And I thought it was a beautifully written scene. We only did four takes, and I got to recede in the water and lose my shit and kind of do whatever I wanted to do, and Alexander thankfully liked the choices I made. To me water is my safety zone, I grew up swimming at one year old; I was actually born underwater, which I don’t think has anything to do with it, but I just love the water.
When you're Hawaiian, born in Hawaii, you learn to swim before you learn to walk, so I thought that was another beautiful element that Alexandra having been born in Hawaii was probably more comfortable underwater than she was above water, and to be vulnerable and to emotionally release herself with this newly found information for the first time under the surface was so great. I could go on about the character reasons I did it, but for me personally, it was a great therapy session. I got to go underwater and scream. [Laughs] Talk about emotional release.
Capone: That is primal scream therapy. Were you familiar with Alexander’s work before this?
SW: I was not. No, I like to think of myself as a fairly educated person, but when it comes to being a fairly educated actor I know zip, zero, none. I mean I’m learning, but I don’t know actors for anything or directors or producers or writers or even movies. I had never seen THE GRADUATE, which is this epic film and I had never heard of it. I saw SIDEWAYS when I was about 14 and I was like, “Mom, this isn’t funny at all. Why are you laughing? This is so boring.” And then when I booked the film, I re-watched it and I was like, “Oh, I get it. This is actually quite brilliant.” And then since then, I've been given an extensive list of movies to watch from Alexander, George, the executive producer--a very good list of movies.
Capone: Alexandra is an example of both the positive and negative aspects of being independent when you're younger. Did you sort of see it that way too, that her independence got her in a lot of trouble, but it also made her a very self-sufficient person?
SW: Yeah, I think at a very young age, she realized that her dad was always going to be that dad who shows up for dinner and then eats it in his office, and her mom was always going to be kind of more self absorbed than she was motherly to her children. I think probably around age five or six or whatever age we as human beings can actually really think for ourselves, she decided that she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her and she would have to be her own protector, and I think she built strong walls and did become a very independent woman or human being, and then she kind of went down the route of “Oh, I’m a victim. The world is out to get me. Why me?”, and she got into drugs and alcohol and kind of resorted to that. But I think the beautiful arc of this story is you are able to see the vulnerable little girl who never wanted to be hurt getting hurt and letting her walls come down.
Capone: There have been discussions about Oscar nominations for the film and for you specifically. Can you even process that possibility?
SW: Yeah, it’s really weird. It’s so weird. I’m grateful, I guess. [Laughs] I don’t have a stutter, but I could definitely stutter when people ask me this question. I always relate it to my best friend who goes to Cornell, and he’s the top of his class at Cornell, and when people go like, “How does it feel to be the top of the class? An Ivy league school god, good for you.” He’s like, “I just love it, but it’s not that big of a deal.” But to everyone else that kind of seems like an accomplishment, right?
To me, acting is fun and it’s an art, and I consider myself more of an artist than an actual actor and I enjoy it, and that’s it. Being on the set, being on the movie set, that exceeded my expectations. All of this, I would say would be the maraschino cherries on top, but because I don’t want to endorse toxins and artificial flavors and colorings, I’m going to say it’s the Bing cherry on top. Who knows what the next month will bring, or the next two months. I’m just so grateful. I’m in Chicago right now talking to you; I’m so fortunate and yeah I’m just kind of taking it day by day and living in gratitude.
Capone: Are there certain types of films that you are very interested in doing more of?
SW: I’m interested in doing films that give me that feeling in my stomach where I have such an intense amount of butterflies, I feel like I could jump up and down and talk about it for hours. That’s how I felt about THE DESCENDANTS. That’s how I felt about very few other things in my life. And I think that’s kind of the physical aspect of passion. I think that’s when your body tells you that you need to do something, because you are passionate about it, and that’s kind of my one rule with this whole thing, I have to be passionate about it.
Capone: Do you like it when a role scares you a little bit?
SW: Absolutely. I think you have to have a little bit of fear to have the excitement, and it’s not bad for you. I think fear is overrated with its negative description. I think fear is quite exciting.
Capone: Obviously a lot of this film deals with death. How did it sort of change your outlook on life?
SW: Actually, the film didn’t change much about my outlook on life, but being in Hawaii surrounded by the positive human beings I was surrounded by, it made me fearless of death. I don’t think death is scary. I don’t know why, there’s just something about that island. I think it is because it was so fortified with nature and you see a tree fall everyday, and then you see it being recycled back into the earth, and it really took me back to the indigenous belief of it’s the circle of life, and eventually you have to give back what you have taken. Just being there I guess has helped me learn that we are responsible for the 80 or so years that we're on this planet and to kind of live from gratitude and compassion and not take anything too seriously.
Capone: Do you know what you are doing next?
SW: Right now I’m just working on "Secret Life," and after that I don’t know. I might go hike the Swiss Alps or something. We’ll see what comes. I don’t know.
Capone: You mentioned before that you never really went through a drug and alcohol phase, but a lot of actors and artists in your age group go through that with an alarming regularity these days. What is it that you turn to or lean on that guides you in the right direction and steers you clear of that nonsense?
SW: I think everyone is given different things in life, and to each his own, right? We all have our own paths. I don’t know what they went through that led them to those ways and I just send them my love and my compassion. I think for me really just laying on grass helps centers me and taking myself outside of the materialism that we surround ourselves with on a daily basis, and I’m so fortunate to be born to the family that I have, because they are all just such phenomenal inspiring human beings.
But I really do think ultimately no one is going to save you. You are your own person, and we don’t think of ourselves that way, because we are not in the eco-system as nature kind of intended. We don’t have our predators on top of us every single day, because we are surrounded by concrete, but you are your own savior. You are your own hero, and I think it’s important to be nice to your body and to do things that your body needs and your soul needs, and for me it’s really about just being in nature and taking time out for myself to allow myself to think, instead of having other people kind of think at me.
Capone: It sounds like Hawaii was the perfect place for you to make that happen.
SW: Yeah, it’s home. It’s for sure home.
Capone: Thank you so much. It was great to meet you.
