Shailene Woodley may owe much of her success of her breakout performance in “The Descendants,” but as it turns out, the success of the Alexander Payne drama starring George Clooney nearly broke her spirit.
“Somebody came to me and said, ‘I can’t wait to see what you do next.’ I took that as pressure–that I had to live up to somebody else’s expectations,” the 22-year-old actress says in the Vanity Fair July cover story. “There were a few months where I was like, ‘I don’t want to act anymore.’ And then I got over it and realized it’s none of my business what other people think of me.”
See video: 5 of Shailene Woodley’s Silliest Talk Show Moments
Woodley continues her rise to movie stardom this month in romantic drama “The Fault in Our Stars,” in which she plays a teenage cancer patient who falls for a boy (Ansel Elgort) she meets in a cancer support group.
The box office hit, which grossed nearly $50 million domestically last weekend, is Woodley’s second of the year, following “Divergent,” another young adult novel adaptation that has raked in $267.3 million since its premiere in March.
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Clooney, who spoke very fondly of Woodley in the Vanity Fair piece, predicts Woodley’s recent rush of success is just the beginning.
“We’ll be talking about Shailene Woodley 40 years from now,” Clooney said. “I’ve never seen anyone so young that has so much together.”
See the full cover, below, which hits national newsstands on June 17.
