Shailene Woodley (born November 15, 1991) is an American
actress. She gained her first popularity playing Amy Juergens in the ABC Family
series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008-2013). She starred in The
Descendants (2011) and The Spectacular Now (2013), with her first Golden Globe
nomination for the former.
Woodley became even more famous after her role as a teenage
cancer patient in the romantic drama The Fault in Our Stars (2014) and Beatrice
Prior in the sci-fi trilogy The Divergent Series (2014-2016). She portrayed a
survivor of sexual assault in the HBO drama series Big Little Lies (2017-2019),
which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Other films she acted in
include Snowden (2016), Adrift (2018), The Mauritanian (2021), Ferrari (2023),
and To Catch a Killer (2023), the last of which she also produced.
On stage, she made her Broadway debut acting in Leslye
Headland's family dramedy play Cult of Love (2024), for which she won a Theater
World Award. She is also an environmental activist and serves as a Greenpeace
Oceans Ambassador, sitting on several boards for environmental causes. She
cofounded the nonprofit All it Takes, which concentrates on youth development.
Early life
Woodley's mother is a middle school counselor and her father, Lonnie, a former school principal and family therapist. Shailene has a younger brother, Tanner. Her parents separated when she was fourteen. Shailene Woodley was discovered by an agent while taking a local theater class, part of an expensive program that she begged her parents to enroll her in after accompanying her cousin to a theater class in her hometown. At the age of five, she began doing commercials for various products, including Leapfrog, Hertz, and a Honda minivan. She appeared in over sixty TV spots until she turned eleven. Woodley has stated that her parents had permitted her to pursue acting under the condition that she fulfill three rules: "I had to stay the person they knew I was; have fun; and do good in school". Woodley was a straight 4.0 student, taking all Advanced Placement classes while graduating from Simi Valley High School. To graduate with her classmates while starring in an ABC Family TV show, which she booked midway through her junior year, a teacher would meet her at home once a week with all the work she was missing at school, which she would complete at home or in her trailer on set between takes. Woodley had thought about studying Interior Design at NYU but never got the chance, as her acting career became too demanding soon after she signed on to star in The Secret Life of the American Teenager. During a hiatus from her series, she took a job at American Apparel in New York City. Two days into her new job, she received a call to meet with director Alexander Payne and left the job two months later after signing on to the film The Descendants. She also took acting classes from Anthony Meindl.
At fifteen, she was diagnosed with scoliosis and was put in
a plastic brace from her chest to her hips for two years. Woodley told Us
Weekly: "It's like wearing a tacky, disgusting, plastic corset for 18
hours a day. In the beginning, it was hard to eat or breathe. And I had to give
up cross-country running. But I needed it to realign my spine." This
didn't come in the way of her work on set since she "would take the brace
off during filming and put it back on during breaks".
Activism
Shailene is a serious activist on climate and environment;
for most of her teenage years in high school, she became interested in
environmentalism and made her health and hygiene products-such as deodorant and
toothpaste-by herself. In 2010, she co-founded the nonprofit organization, All
It Takes, with her mother. All It Takes is devoted to educating youth to
practice responsibility, compassion, empathy, and purpose to bring sustainable
change to the environment. She was a very involved activist for Sanders during
both his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 and was actually on the board
of his political organization Our Revolution. In 2016, Woodley was arrested for
criminal trespass in Saint Anthony, North Dakota, due to protesting against the
Dakota Access Pipeline. In 2016, she joined Our Revolution, a political
grassroots organization that endeavors to teach the insufficiency of the voting
process and the need for citizens to involve themselves in the political
process to work toward organizing, electing progressive politicians. Woodley
earned the Entertainment Industry Environmental Leadership Award at the 20th
Anniversary Global Green Environmental Awards in September 2016. As an Oceans
Ambassador for Greenpeace, Woodley was part of an expedition to the Sargasso
Sea to examine how plastic affects marine life, which lasted three weeks.
Success
Woodley's major break came in 2008 when she starred as Amy
Juergens-a 15-year-old who discovered that she was pregnant-in the ABC Family
series ''The Secret Life of the American Teenager'' from 2008 to 2013. For this
role, Shailene was nominated for several Teen Choice Awards. The show had huge
viewership and Woodley got quite a lot of critical praise in reviews about the
show. Over its 121 episodes and five-season run, Secret Life of the American
Teenager was one of the network's most widely viewed shows.
Woodley's debut in a movie was through ''The Descendants''
in 2011, alongside George Clooney, who plays Matt King in the film. Shailene
played the character Alex, who thrived as King's troublesome older child. The
performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in
a Motion Picture and accolades from critics. She also bagged an Independent
Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress.
For the 2013 film ''The Spectacular Now,'' Woodley starred
opposite Miles Teller. She had been cast for ''White Bird in a Blizzard,''
before playing the role of Beatrice ''Tris'' Prior in the film adaptation of
the ''Divergent'' series. The first of the movies was released in 2014 and
turned out to be the highest-grossing in the box office.
Woodley next played Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old
cancer patient, in the 2014 film ''The Fault in our Stars,'' adapted from John
Green's novel of the same name. The film was a commercial success, grossing
more than $307 million worldwide, while Woodley's performance was widely
praised by critics and audiences alike. Shailene won the Hollywood Film Award
for Hollywood Breakout Performance for her performance.
Shailene Woodley
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Screen Name | Shailene Woodley |
| Real Name | Shailene Diann Woodley |
| Date of Birth | 15 November 1991 |
| Age | 33 years |
| Birth Place | San Bernardino County, California, U.S. (born); grew up in Simi Valley, CA. |
| Compare with Net worth | Ansel Elgort, Theo James, Renee Zellweger, Amy Adams, Zoe Kravitz |
| Country | USA |
| Profession | Actress |
| Social Media | |
| Mother | Lori |
| Father | Lonnie Woodley |
| Siblings | Tanner Woodley |
| Spouse / Engagements | Engaged to Aaron Rodgers (2020–2022) — engagement ended. Not married. |
| Boyfriends | Roberta Colindrez (2024), Ben Volavola (2017–2020), Ezra Miller (2016), Nahko Bear (2014–2016), Theo James (2014), Elliot Page |
| Relationship | 8 |
| Net Worth | $12 Million USD |
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