Into The Light
With
Shailene Woodley
SHAILENE WOODLEY is a Hollywood powerhouse who’s as well known for her activism as her starring roles in Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars, Big Little Lies and the TV adaptation of Lisa Taddeo’s cult book, Three Women. But rising above the ‘fame game’ and staying true to herself hasn’t always come easy. Here, she talks to TYLER McCALL about her painful year, finding joy in the small stuff and finally letting go of other people’s expectations
Last year turned out to be a time of transformation for Shailene Woodley, which is why she is determined to forge more moments to appreciate the small things in 2023. “The way that I take care of myself now looks very different to the way I used to,” the actor shares, warming her palms on a cup of herbal tea, when we meet on a rainy day in New York. She found the summer particularly revelatory, spending time in Europe, where she enjoyed observing Italians living life almost phone-free. “[They] could sit on a bench in the park and just watch the world go by, and that was enough” – an observation that inspired her to practice being more present in her own life.
The trip followed an intense period for Woodley: she had just finished shooting Three Women, the Showtime adaptation of Lisa Taddeo’s New York Times bestselling study of the sex lives of women in the US. The show was filmed across New York, from October 2021 to May 2022, and the experience proved to be both challenging and cathartic for Woodley.
“I was so GRATEFUL that I could go to work and CRY and process my EMOTIONS through my character”
“It was hard to film because I was going through the darkest, hardest time in my life; it was winter in New York, and my personal life was shitty, so it felt like a big pain bubble for eight months,” recalls Woodley, who was widely reported to have split from her former fiancé, NFL player Aaron Rodgers, early last year. “I was so grateful that at least I could go to work and cry and process my emotions through my character.”
The character in question is Gia (a fictional representation of Taddeo), and the show, which is formatted in a similar way to the book, sees Gia travel across the US to hear the stories of Lina (played by Betty Gilpin), a housewife whose husband won’t kiss her; Sloane (DeWanda Wise), an entrepreneur in an open relationship with her husband; and Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy), a student who realizes she’d been preyed upon by her high-school teacher.
“To me, EMPOWERMENT simply means truth, vulnerability, acknowledging the GOOD and the bad, the pros, the cons, the ugly, the BEAUTY”
The role appealed to Woodley’s own interest in a cultural approach to sex, a spark that was ignited when she traveled the world at 18. “I had, at a very young age, become obsessed with sex and intimacy, and the way that we relate to it as Americans,” she says. When Woodley read Three Women, she remembers “being very struck by Lisa’s desire to explore these themes in this country”.
Nuances are frequently lost in an adaptation to screen, and it would have been easy to turn these intimate, messy portraits into a parable about ‘strong women’, a trope currently dominating Hollywood in an effort to tell more female-led stories. That wasn’t what Woodley wanted, though – a feeling fortunately shared by Taddeo and the creative team.
“Sometimes it’s frustrating, because a lot of the things that I read are all about women’s empowerment and feminism, but the way the stories are being told are actually not portraying women in an empowered way. To me, empowerment simply means truth, vulnerability, acknowledging the good and the bad, the pros, the cons, the ugly, the beauty,” Woodley says. “The conversation I had with Lisa was about that; we’re not here trying to make a show that’s championing women all around the world to become the best versions of themselves – it’s a show that’s just acknowledging the reality that women face.”
“I’m so EXCITED to continue letting go of so many of the things that CONTROLLED me in my twenties; to really experience the JOY of life in a way that, when you’re younger, is more difficult to experience”
It could be a lot of pressure, not only serving as the narrative glue of the series but embodying the author, who is also a writer on the show. Woodley viewed this as further opportunity for reflection.
“I found a lot of comfort and inspiration from Lisa, in being more available to my emotions and willing to share them a bit more; I’m still working on it,” she says. “It’s hard if you haven’t been conditioned or raised that way, and it’s almost like I felt I found permission via Lisa/Gia to be more [of] an outwardly emotional creature.”
There’s another layer of complication added to emotional vulnerability when you’re as famous as Woodley. But it feels like there’s little difference between Shai – the woman who greets me with a warm smile and hug and lets me prattle on about intellectualizing our feelings – and Shailene, Hollywood actor. It comes from an inner peace she’s found since entering her thirties.
“I’ve always loved getting older, but it’s almost like I feel an exhale; I’ve been waiting so long to experience not giving a fuck about what other people think about me and my life and the choices I make,” she says. “I’m so excited to continue letting go of so many of the things that controlled me in my twenties; to really experience the joy of life in a way that, when you’re younger, is more difficult to experience – because it’s controlled by the way you were raised instead of the identity that you create as your own person.”
That confidence has seeped into the way Woodley approaches work, too. After a brief period of insecurity in her late twenties (“What if I’m not good? What if I should quit? What if this was a phase and now, I’m done?”), the actor is more confident than she was about her abilities, and she doesn’t feel she has to play the fame game in order to stay relevant. She joined Instagram for a different reason: in 2016, she wanted to encourage people to vote in the US presidential election, and she was able to put a spotlight on the Standing Rock protests, garnering more than 500,000 signatures for one petition against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
She also found it a fun way to stay connected, interspersing her political posts with dancing videos. Then, things started to shift for her. She began to feel turned off by the mounting public pressure on anyone with a platform to post about issues they might not be informed about.
“I recognized that there was more noise than ever and most of the people I was following, they’d be posting about something, and yet, I knew behind closed doors, they didn't actually know what they were talking about, and I’m so allergic to people talking about things that they know nothing about,” Woodley says. “I think because of ‘cancel culture’, everybody feels like they have to be wise and intelligent about something, but no one actually wants to do the work of being quiet and taking the time to read books and educate themselves and listen to people who are actually well-informed on subjects, and to be critical thinkers.”
Woodley was already stepping back from the platform to take the time to do more reading and listening herself. But then came the relationship with Rodgers. “It honestly never really hit me that millions of people around the world were actually watching these things and paid attention to them. Then, I dated somebody in America who was very, very famous,” she explains. “It was the first time that I’d had a quote-unquote ‘famous’ relationship, and I watched [the] scrutiny, opinions, the desire for people to know my life and his life and our life – it just felt violating in a way that, before, it was fun. I’m a very private person, and so I found that any time I posted anything, I instantly felt like I was sharing too much of who I am with people I didn’t necessarily trust.”
“The SMALLER things to me actually feel like the MOST extraordinary little slices of MAGIC on the planet”
Removing Instagram from her phone to reduce the noise of social media has enabled Woodley to focus more on the elements she derives joy from, an ethos that spills into various areas of her life. Her pared-back approach to style, for example, follows suit.
“The smaller things to me actually feel like the most extraordinary little slices of magic on the planet, so if I can find one piece of clothing that is a slice of magic, that makes me feel like I’m celebrating myself because I feel so at home in the way I look,” she says.
There’s magic, too, in finding a role that’s not only rewarding on a professional level, but a personal level – like Gia, a character who helped Woodley connect more empathetically to herself and work during a dark period in her life. She hopes the show will serve the same purpose for its audience.
“Three Women feels like it matters a lot – mostly, I think, because it mattered so much to me,” she says. “I feel honored to be a part of it, because it genuinely gave me a North Star in a time in my life when my compass… calibration did not exist. And I think it has the potential to provide a North Star for other people out there, too.”
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