Shailene Woodley covers ASOS Magazine June 2020. The 20-year-old actress chats about a wide range of topics including fame and fortune, her spare time and outdoor adventures, being happiest out of the spotlight, playing Amy Juergens in ABC Family’s ‘The Secret Life of An American Teenager’ and ‘The Descendants’, the movie that made her famous all around the globe.
“The Descendants was so real and so raw. The emotional roller coaster that you go on, where you’re laughing in one scene and crying in the next. It felt very special. And spending all that time with George [Clooney] and Alexander [Payne, the film’s director], I acquired big brothers almost. A lot of people say, ‘It’s a lot and how did you handle it?’ but it didn’t feel like a lot. The only thing it felt like was being extremely busy and travelling. Being in Hawaii with everybody felt natural and like I had been doing it my whole life,” Shailene says.
In the interview with ASOS, the young actress admits that she doesn’t seek fortune and fame. “I don’t pay any attention to all of that stuff. I never have. I know nothing about the industry, nothing about the ‘business’ and I intend to always be that way. There are more options coming in for me [since The Descendants], but that really doesn’t affect me, because I will never do a movie I’m not passionate about. I’d rather be in a two-minute scene in a phenomenal Meryl Streep movie than the lead of an action-hero film,” Woodley says.
On her role in ‘The Secret Life of An American Teenager’, Shailene told ASOS magazine that, “My character was pregnant in the first season, so it deals with the trials and tribulations of having a child at a young age. And the cross relationships between kids and high school and parents and divorce. It deals with a lot of really important themes.”
The young starlet confesses that her dream is to do more films. “Movies are where my heart is at. I love dark roles – roles that appear scary. Not in a horror film way, but like ‘Black Swan’ or ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. Films that take the audience on an emotional journey. And I would love to play Patti Smith in a film one day – I’m re-reading her autobiography, I’m obsessed with it,” Shailene says.
On attending a lot of parties in February, Woodley admits that, “It was fun! The one thing that did get annoying was the constant use of make-up and fancy dresses [she, in fact, apologises for turning up to the interview with make-up on]. It’s turned from this world of cinema, to, ‘You’re not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not best-dressed enough…’ But I didn’t do The Descendants to wear a designer’s dress and a lot of make-up and get points from the fashion police.”
As on her white Valentino Couture dress she chose for the Oscars, Shailene says that, “A lot of people didn’t like it. They were like, ‘she’s 20, she’s covering herself up, why is she doing that?’ But to me it felt classy and elegant and that’s what I think of when I think of the Oscars. It felt simple and elegant and it still represented who I am. Most of my clothes come through friends – this cardigan is two years old and these jeans are my friend’s boyfriend’s.”
What about the future? “I’m excited to become a bada** archer. I want to be able to shoot a small pen dot on the wall, 20 feet away, I want to be like [The Hunger Games] Katniss,” the actress told ASOS.
Photos courtesy of ASOS
