InThree Women, the actor digs into the mess of sex and gender in America.
Shailene Woodley doesnt really do small talk.
Im very uninterested in the performance of people at this moment in life.
Why are we the way we are?
Whats stopping us from being our truest selves?
To be able to have the parallel conversations while doing the parallel work about the subject is really healing.
Woodley, 32, has doneplenty of accounting in her personal lifethe last few years, too.
She began filmingThree Womenaround the time herhyper-scrutinizedrelationship with NFL quarterback and ex-fiance Aaron Rodgers ended.
Today, she describes her disinterest in pretense as the result of a broken heart.
I give all of myself, Woodley says.
And now you cross me, I respectfully go, Thank you so much for that information.
Have a beautiful life.
I wish you well.
Did playing a journalist change her relationship to doing press?
Journalists can be really f*cking sneaky.
Thats why I record everything now, because Im like, You say something I didnt say?
Ultimately, Woodley hopesThree Womenwill accomplish something similar.
How early did you get involved inThree Women?
I read the script, and then Zoomed with Lisa Taddeo and Laura Easton, our showrunner.
People can use the word soulmate.
I use the phrase cosmic collision.
Its just true support and true vision.
Lisa understands everything I say, not because of intellect but because of heart.
What helped you stop caring so much about performing for others?
Just a broken heart.
A broken heart that healed and broke again.
I fell in love over and over with unavailability.
Im very open as a human.
You’ve been acting since you were so young.
Did it take you a while to figure out how to operate in a surface-obsessed industry?
For better or for worse, Ive just been who I am.
I get called weird a lot.
Its humorous because I actually think I’m very normal and boring.
So Ive never really had to figure out how to navigate it because I just always didme.
I look like a clown.
I have a massive amount of makeup on.
Other than that, I left.
I didnt do it on purpose to escape Hollywood.
I did it because it was what fascinated me.
I could wash dishes for a while at a B&B in a random farming town in Italy.
I could exchange teaching someone English for a place to sleep.
It was a really beautiful way of living, and it helped keep me grounded.
Im going, How can you do that in front of your dad?
And theyre going, Shai, thats so gross.
Why would you even think like that?
Its weird and perverted that you would think theres something wrong with this.
Life is too short for that.
But it is endemic in this country.
Its a confusing time to be a pleasure-seeking individual in the United States of America.
I was taught zero boundaries, which turns out is not necessarily the healthiest thing.
Im a big believer in boundaries.Massivebeliever.
Yeah, childhoods are funny.
I went through a phase of contending with what Ive been through.
Do you think having a professional life so young affected how you process your childhood?
Ive always been a little bit of a late bloomer.
Im learning things at 32 that many of my friends learned at 20.
I didnt go through puberty till I was 15 and a half.
I played with Barbies.
Action figures were my jam.
Didnt have my first kiss until later in high school.
But I also had this desire to be taken seriously on a film set.
I read a lot.
Ive studied many subjects.
Im kind of a nerd and science freak.
I love everything from quantum physics to epigenetics to neuroscience.
Now I ask more questions.
Do you experience that at all?
I dont think I ever really had expectations of life.
I want to be a mom.
But I dont have a that should have happened by now kind of thing.
Maybe the physical discomfort I walked through when I was younger taught me not to have expectations.
[Woodley has said she experienced an unspecified health scare in her early 20s.]
Is there a way to love without trauma?
There motherf*ckinghasto be.
I think thats how you love without trauma.
It doesnt mean that there isnt pain, but youre not making others taste that pain.
A lot of actors appreciate social media because you’re free to speak directly to the public.
Do you find it to be an effective tool for connection?
Im just trying to figure it out.
Instead of being inquisitive to try and dissect and discover, we pigeonhole and cancel.
Man, its so destructive.
Do you feel like you were misunderstood when you shared Melania Trumps letter about the assassination attempt?
Literally, I read it and I was like, This is so beautiful.
F*cking assassin missed!
Maybe it was a setup.
Maybe it was a conspiracy.
I was going, Have we forgotten that two human lives were taken?
I could not understand how people were speaking about something with such passion for death.
I only posted the first page of it, because the second page was more political.
The man underneath that mask is my husband.
Then a week later, I got a text from a friend that said, Are you OK?
I Googled my name, because Im like, Oh f*ck, what did I say?
Hundreds of articles because I posted about a woman saying shes grateful her husband is alive?
It made me shake my head.
I dont want to add to unnecessary noise.
You mean through your activism and nonprofit work?
I am on the board of different organizations.
My beliefs are pretty well-known by the things that I have done publicly in the quote-unquote activist world.
In the past youve talked about mentors you have in Hollywood.
Who are those people for you right now?
I have my tight group of angels people that I look up to and lean on.
In 2016, I remember I was a staunch Bernie Sanders fan.
Like, my God, I went to dozens of states for that man.
It was only, Thank God you participated.
Thank God you cared.
Thank God you tried to do something.
Going forward, what do you want for your future?
Honestly, I just want to wake up feeling content, and I want to go to sleep content.
Other than that, I leave a lot of room for magic.
I want to be an actor and artist for the rest of my life.
I want to create and tell meaningful stories.
I want to find a person to do life with, and have a family.
And I want to watch the sunset.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
