Cast, director enhanced series work for co-star
Shailene Woodley is a wanderer.
The 25- year- old actress has plenty of money but no conventional home — or any plans to buy one.
During a recent interview, Woodley said that most of the possessions that matter to her would contain to a single suitcase.
“I can almost fit everything in there except some kitchen items,” she said.
She’s well- suited, then, for the life of an actress who spends a lot of time on farflung movie locations.
“I love the wanderlust life — plus, when I’m home, I don’t want to be alone; I want to be with friends and family.”
In the HBO limited series “Big Little Lies,” Woodley portrays Jane Chapman, a dressed-down single mother who arrives with her young, somewhat-strange son in upscale Monterey, California, to begin anew.
The miniseries centers on a murder in the ritzy town and the three leading suspects are all mothers of first- graders.
The town’s Queen Bee, Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), befriends Jane, as does Celeste Wright ( Nicole Kidman), the local beauty harboring marital secrets.
The miniseries — produced by Kidman and Witherspoon, among others — was written by David E. Kelley and directed by Jean- Marc Vallee (“Dallas Buyers Club” and “Wild”).
Dern, a friend of Woodley’s, first approached her about the series.
“Laura said, ‘ You better do this project,”’ Woodley said with a laugh. “It was a lot of fun because Jean-Marc Vallee ... directed. I felt like we were making one long movie but with character development that you can’t do in many films.
“There was also something about having this really fluid French energy around that was really nice and completely different,” she added. “Plus the cast was just phenomenal and made me feel very creatively stimulated.”
Jane Chapman marks Woodley’s first mom role.
“I can’t wait to have children of my own,” she said, smiling. “This was a practice run, with a little genius child, on- screen. It was a good learning experience.”
Because she had worked with George Clooney and, on the “Divergent” series, with Janet McTeer and Naomi Watts, Woodley avoided feeling intimidated by Dern, Kidman and Witherspoon.
“They’re amazing women,” she said. “I keep hearing, ‘ What was it like to go up against them?’ The key thing here is that we worked together and not each other.
“This show broke down those barriers ... when it came to camaraderie amongst women and how we relate to each other. Plus, no one would ask five men what it was like to go up against each other on- screen.”
Woodley, a native of Simi Valley, California, is the daughter of a middle- school counselor and a school principal.
She began modeling at age 4, then turned to acting. She made her small-screen debut in the TV movie “Replacing Dad” (1999) and later appeared on “The District” ( 2001- 03), “The O. C.” (2003-04) and “Crossing Jordan” ( 2001- 04).
Woodley was starring as Amy Juergens on the TV series “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” (2008-13) when she was cast as the outspoken daughter of a troubled father ( Clooney) in “The Descendants” ( 2011), drawing raves for her performance.
She achieved international stardom playing the tough Tris in “Divergent” and its two sequels, then scored another hit as the cancerstricken Hazel in “The Fault in Our Stars” ( 2014).
“I feel like I’m always working, which is good,” she said.
One rule of thumb for Woodley has been to avoid reading stories about herself on the internet.
“You can’t really control what other people say or do when it comes to you,” she said. “So for me to waste any of my time worrying about that is just going to create more stress that is completely out of my control.
“I can only control my own actions and what I choose to say and do.”