Woodley: Teen intersects thin line between comedy, drama

Shailene WoodleyImagine the first meaty movie role. Imagine it calls for a lengthy shoot in Hawaii. Then imagine George Clooney is playing your father."Yes, at first glance that sounds pretty great, does not it?" Shailene Woodley states to be cast within the Alexander Payne drama "The Descendants." "Then being part of it, that actual doing from it, being much better than I possibly could have imagined."Woodley's nuanced act as the issue child daughter in "The Descendants" won raves once the movie opened in the Telluride Film Festival in September. Playing the combative Alex, Woodley shows both an advantage and vulnerability being an adolescent who, somewhat, offers more knowledge than her father and, in other people, is just yearning to provide him an opportunity to behave as her parent.The fabric, like Payne's previous films, varies in tone, which sometimes posed challenging for that 19-year-old actress."In the end were filming I had been thinking, 'Are we carrying out a drama or perhaps a comedy?' " Woodley states. "We'd perform a scene I figured was said to be serious and Alexander would say, 'No, I really want you in the future in internet marketing from here of view.' And you begin to see the way he combined the laughter and also the stomach-wrenching moments. He understood what he was doing."The Simi Valley native started who audition when she was five years old and arrived her large break playing a disadvantage artist's daughter within the 2004 Hallmark TV movie "A Location Known as Home." Woodley is finishing her 4th season of ABC Family's "The Key Existence from the American Teen," that has adopted her character from the pregnant 15-year-old to some youthful mother juggling an infant using the demands of faculty and associations."I am almost from my teens," Woodley states, "and so i feel prepared to move onto more aged roles. Making 'The Descendants' offered me a great start."Lucky break: "Honestly, my large break had been born to my loved ones. I began after i was 5 and my mother drove me to auditions, not because she pressed me but because I needed to get this done.InchPreferred film: "This is actually dorky, however i love 'The Goonies.' I do not eat Spaghetti O's anymore, however i still watch 'The Goonies.'"Career Let me emulate: "A combination of Marcia Gay Harden and Natalie Portman. I labored with Marcia after i was 13 and merely think the field of her. And each single role Natalie Portman selects, it's from passion."10 Stars To Look At 2011:Benedict Cumberbatch Jean Dujardin Luke Evans Josh Hutcherson Felicity Johnson Taylor Kitsch Brit Marling Elizabeth Olsen Octavia Spencer Shailene Woodley Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com