For Woodley, the role of Hazel Brown can help redefine female roles
In ‘Fault in our Stars’, Shailene Woodley doesn’t play the typical, manicured female lead. She’s not struggling to attract a guy’s attention or stabbing daemons in the heart with knife drawn from her knee-high boots. She plays Hazel Grace, a cancer patient at the age of 16.
Ansel Elgort [L] and Shailene Woodley [R] in 'The Fault in Our Stars'
And Woodley isn’t just the star of the film, she was a fan of the book before it was adapted, and even pleaded with author, John Green, to act upon his surname and give a film version his blessing. ‘Green-light it’, in case you didn’t pick up on that.
More: Shailene Woodley is on creative leave after 'The Fault in Our Stars'
"I didn't say I needed to be Hazel," Woodley explained at the movie’s premiere on June 2, according to CNN. "I said I needed this movie to get made. Because I knew that it would change the lives of millions of people." And although Woodley says she wasn’t angling for the main part, Green remembers things quite differently.
"The letter was extremely long, like 40 pages long, and ... I didn't technically know who Shailene Woodley was," he said. "So I just responded like, 'That's such a lovely e-mail! Thank you so much! But I am not a casting director.' And then when I saw her audition, of course I was horrified that I had not written her back and said, like, 'Please! Please! Be in our movie!'"
More: click for the 'Fault in Our Stars' trailer
Woodley has been compared to Jennifer Lawrence of late, a comparison she doesn’t’ particularly care for. And while there are similarities between the pair – both are helping to subvert gender stereotypes in cinema in their own particular ways, Woodley is going about things slightly differently.
"In 'Fault,' I am trying to rewrite what a female lead can look like," Woodley said. "You've never seen a woman on the poster for a movie with a cannula in her nose."
Here's another remarkable biopic from Oliver Stone, who has used all-star casts and intensely pointed...
Edward Snowden always knew he wanted to serve his country and, as most young men...
After the more thrilling Insurgent, this saga reverts to the talky style of the original...
In the third instalment of the Divergent series Allegiant, Tris and Four find themselves plunged...
In June 2013, a high-flying 29-year-old government employee named Edward Snowdon suddenly found himself the...
A sharp improvement on the original, this second entry in The Divergent Series has a...
There's an unusual honesty to this film, which is an odyssey into the inner life...
Following on from the events of 'Divergent', the mysterious government has discovered a magical maguffin...
Following the revelation that she is Divergent and not specialised for any of the dystopian...
It is a time for sexual awakening for Kat Connors (Shailene Woodley). The 17-year-old is...
Based on the beloved novel by John Green, this film is so squarely slanted toward...
Teens tackle yet another dystopian future in this well-made but derivative franchise-launcher. Filmmaker Neil Burger...
Hazel Lancaster is a bright 16-year-old girl suffering from terminal cancer who is forced to...
Author Veronica Roth and the cast of her book's film adaptation 'Divergent' talk about the...