Shailene Woodley, the star of The Secret Life of an American Teenager, is set to star in the movie, The Descendents, alongside George Clooney and she revealed to The Hollywood Reporter what it was like meeting the big time star and the deets on the role she played in the movie.
On meeting George Clooney:
“We met at the first table read… I wasn’t intimidated by working with ‘George Clooney’ until I saw him, and my heart started pounding, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s George Clooney!’ And then he came over, and gave me a giant hug, and said, ‘Welcome, sweety!’ Something really warm. And, from that moment on, he wasn’t ‘George Clooney’ in my eyes; he was George Clooney from Kentucky.”
On the scene in which she gets some bad news:
“The script said, ‘She goes under water and distorts her face,’ or something similar to that. I’m really comfortable in the water — I was born in the water, started swimming at one-and-a-half, so the water has always been Shai’s safe zone. So it was really exciting for me to take a character who has just heard this… awful news about her family — her mother — and to be able to escape into the water… It was like a baby in a womb — no one can hear you; you can be vulnerable and nobody knows. And I think that was a really special moment, not only for Alexandra, but, selfishly, for me. It was like my own therapy session!”
On the scene in which she gives some bad news:
“To cry wasn’t hard — I’m very in touch with my emotional side; I don’t know why. But to cry wasn’t hard because the words evoked the emotion. What was fun about that scene was to not cry, to try and hold it in. I know that sounds weird, but that’s almost more difficult sometimes than actually crying… It was a beautiful moment for me because I really got to express her in the way I wanted without the feeling of being rushed, or annoying, or anyone judging me.”
On the scene in which she speaks up for her father:
“That was a great moment because, in the beginning of the film, Alexandra is very estranged from her family, and Matt is, too, in a different way. I’d like to think that, when she was younger, they had a very close relationship, and, through a series of events in her life, they, kind of, became detached… I think that scene at the end — when she stands up for him, and when Nick Krause’s character Sid stands up for him — is so beautiful because it’s the final arc of the story… It’s the first time, I think, she recognizes her father, or at least shows anyone else that she sees him as a human being. It was full circle.”