ShareThisActress Shailene Woodley has had an agent since age 5, played a live-action version of American Girl doll Felicity on TV and is wrapping her fourth season of "The Secret Life of the American Teenager."
But she admits to a short-lived case of the jitters over George Clooney, who plays her father in "The Descendants."
"The first time I met him was at the table read, and I wasn't nervous until he walked in, and then I started sweating," the actress, 20, acknowledged in a phone call this month. Her insecurity didn't last long, though.
"Then he came up to me and he was, like, 'Welcome, sweetie,' and gave me a giant hug, and immediately the intimidation went out the window. He is such a genuinely humble, phenomenal human being.
"Yeah, and so it wasn't like I was working with quote-unquote 'George Clooney, superstar, two-time Sexiest Man Alive,' whatever. I was working with a man from Kentucky with a heart of gold."
And who could pick up more gold hardware this awards season.
In "The Descendants," Clooney is a Hawaiian husband and father of two daughters whose wife lands in a coma after a boating mishap. When he tells Woodley's character, Alexandra, about her mother's prognosis, the girl has no place to hide, so she ducks under the water of the family's swimming pool and sobs in one of the dramedy's signature, gut-wrenching scenes.
Woodley, who has been swimming since she was a toddler, did the scene four times. "I loved it, I love water. ... For me, being in the water is like being on land. To be able to go under water and scream and be emotional and vulnerable, I thought it was beautifully written, and I'm so fortunate I was able to perform it."
Ask her about the awards season, though, and she demurs.
"For me, acting is about the art of it and being on set and being able to be creative and emotionally express -- that's what I crave, that's what I live for. And so all the extra, political side of acting, I'm learning about it still. ...
"Definitely being on set, that's what's the most creative, and that's what I pay the most attention to. Everything else is beautiful and I'm so grateful for it. It's been such a fun ride, going to all these festivals and helping publicize the movie and talking about it."
Part of that talk is about Hawaii, which she had never visited until the movie.
"I'm obsessed with it, my heart is there. I could talk about it for hours. The abundance of nature and the overwhelming amount of oxygen in the air, it's so refreshing; it centers me and grounds me," said Woodley.
"I'm an outdoors freak, so the ability to go on a hike or a run or kayak or swim or snorkel or spearfish, there's just an overwhelming amount of things to do. It's a very magical place."
For Patricia Hastie, "The Descendants" was a good news/bad news situation. Yes, you will get to play Clooney's wife, but you will spend virtually all of the movie in bed comatose, other than some brief flashbacks.
"She literally had the hardest job on that set, or one of them. She lost over 20 pounds. She would stay up all night, come to work, go through hair and makeup, pop a Melatonin, go to bed, put earplugs in, say, 'Don't wake me ... and sleep throughout the day."
Hastie had to remain motionless as the actors portraying her husband and older daughter berated her and others fussed and wept over her hospital bed.
"For her to stay still like that, I cannot even express how much it helped. Had we been doing an emotional scene and if she had twitched, we would have had to stop and go again, and that never happened."
Maybe it was that Hawaiian blessing preceding production. "We all touched sacred Hawaiian water; it's said to protect you. Who knows what truth there is in that, but I think that initiated the spark for the entire experience."
Woodley played big sister on and off the set to young Amara Miller, who had never acted before. The two of them, along with Nick Krause, who plays a teenage friend, functioned like a trio of siblings.
And like real sisters, the older one sometimes told the younger one, "Scram, kid, I need my space," and the little one begged and teased, "Play with me, play with me," she recalled.
"There was a lot of showing her the ropes and showing her what was appropriate and what was not appropriate, which to a 10-year-old, you really don't have any boundaries, you have to instill that. It's been two years since we filmed, and she's gone through this beautiful maturation process."
Woodley celebrated her birthday on Nov. 15 by donning a strapless tea-length Dolce and Gabbana dress in black with a floral print and heading to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Calif., for a showing of "The Descendants."
"It's the best way ever to celebrate your birthday," she said, and Wednesday marks the completion of shooting for the TV season.
Talking about juggling movie promotions and ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," on which she's a teen mom with messy romantic relationships, she said, "It's actually been quite crazy. I get up at 5 in the morning to go to work, end at around 3 or 4 and have a two-hour break and then go and do a Q&A for the movie and then go back to work the next morning."
In fact, she called Pittsburgh from Phoenix by cellphone.
"It's been a crazy schedule, but it's so much fun. I'm loving it. I'm so grateful. I have nothing to complain about. I'm such a fortunate girl."
(Email movie editor Barbara Vancheri at bvancheri(at)post-gazette.com. Read her blog: www.post-gazette.com/madaboutmovies.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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