With four big movies coming out in the next year, it is no surprise to learn that Shailene Woodley is a multitasker.
“I am currently on a mission,” she replies, when asked where she is. “I am on the phone with you, walking through a hotel, up and down elevators, going to a room to do some more interviews after I talk to you.”
Woodley, who became a “name” based on her performance as George Clooney’s profane daughter in “The Descendants” and as the title character on TV’s “The Secret Life of an American Teenager,” has a lot to talk about, starting with “The Spectacular Now,” a romantic drama that opens Friday.
In “The Spectacular Now,” Woodley plays Aimee, a bookish high school graduate who takes a shine to troubled classmate Sutter. Inspired by such movies as “Say Anything” and “Dazed and Confused,” “The Spectacular Now” is more serious, more character-based and less vampirey than most recent teenage romances.
“I saw Aimee as somebody who was strong and ambitious, with lots of things that she wanted to do in life but that maybe she didn’t have the confidence to do,” says Woodley, who is 21. “I knew she wasn’t a wallflower or a nerd and I fought really hard to make sure you could see that she was somebody who had almost chosen not to have friends. She had chosen who she was.”
The script for “The Spectacular Now” appealed to Woodley because she can’t recall another movie character like Aimee, a loner who is fine with that.
“I felt like there was something interesting about her decisions being so specific,” Woodley says. “It makes her realistic and relatable, and stereotypes never are. We’re all more than one thing, and luckily the director (James Ponsoldt) was on the same page as far as what I envisioned Aimee to be.”
Ponsoldt helped Woodley keep Aimee on track, since the actress says she’s nothing like her character: “She’s so introverted and quiet, so I had to try to tap into that introverted girl thing. I’m an extrovert — I’m always loud and in the middle of everything and excited all the time.”
That outgoing personality might come in handy when her next two movies, both based on popular books, thrust her into the spotlight. In March, there’s “Divergent,” the first of a “Hunger Games”-like trilogy in which she plays an inspiring teenage heroine.
“We were just at Comic-Con (the annual convention for fans of comics and the movies and TV shows based on them). It was one of those things where I saw the inside of a hotel room and never really saw any of the convention,” Woodley says. “We had just wrapped ‘Divergent’ a few days before that, so it was weird to already be promoting it, but people seemed to love what we shared with them.”
Later next year, there will be the hugely anticipated adaptation of the young adult bestseller, “The Fault in Our Stars.” The book is a funny/sad romance about two kids with cancer who find each other, and Woodley is well aware fans of the book will be livid if the movie messes it up.
“Oh. My. Gosh. I. Am. So. In. Love. With. That Book,” Woodley says. “I read the script a year and a half ago and then immediately read the book. I had never read anything that had such an important, universal message and such a beautiful story. I fought so hard for this movie, and I can honestly say that getting to do it is one of the biggest honors in my life.”
Which gives Woodley another task to add to the others she is juggling: Make sure “The Fault in Our Stars” is a good film.
“It’s a huge responsibility,” Woodley says. “I was telling (writer John Green) the other day, ‘My biggest fear is that we won’t do your beautiful book justice.’ But the script is great, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure we do it as well as we possibly can.”
