SHAILENE WOODLEY

I think the most important thing in life is self-love, because if you don't have self-love, and respect for everything about your own body, your own soul, your own capsule, then how can you have an authentic relationship with anyone else?

I think every teenager goes through their angst. People who are like, 'No, I had a perfect adolescence,' make me wonder how that is possible.

There's been times when I've had heartbreaking moments and I'm like, 'I can't believe you said that,' or 'I can't believe you did that'. And it hurts, it still hurts, and it'll always hurt, but I've never had somebody that I truly cared about just walk out on me, whether it was a boyfriend, or an aunt, mom or dad.

Acting is fun and I refuse to get involved in the semantics and the politics of strategy and breaking out of something or doing something because you need to do something else. For me it's all about what fuels my soul and if I'm passionate about a screenplay then that's what I'll do next.

When it comes down to it, I'm just a girl who wears those five-finger weird toe shoes.

I feel like a turtleneck dress that's long-sleeved and covers your entire body but is tight fitting is so much sexier than boobs spilling out, you know? So I guess I'm more into being classy sexy versus apparent sexy.

My favorite movies are movies that I go in and I leave deeply affected. Whether I laugh really hard or whether I cry really hard, I just want to feel really affected in that moment.

I went to public school my whole life, graduated high school with my class. Growing up, I'd go to an audition, my friends would go to soccer practice and we'd all reconvene and hang out in our neighborhood. When I would book something, I would never tell my friends. Acting was just fun. I was a kid, I wasn't jaded.

You forget that you do choose your life and there are so many things to be grateful for and I feel like society has gotten to that point where we're always looking for the next and the better and we lose sight of what's actually in front of us.

Every family is dysfunctional, whether you want to admit it or not.

Alcohol is a big part of high school. I went through my little phase. I don't know one high schooler that doesn't.

Every single journey that I've embarked on, I've learned something new.

I'm not really fond of the trails left in the sky and a lot of chemicals that are being pumped through factories and even in the clothes we wear.

There aren't a lot of films about adolescents or quote-unquote coming-of-age films that are realistic nowadays.

I think there is a point in every teenager's life where they are forced to come into themselves.

For me, my rule in this industry is I've got to listen to my butterflies. So if I got butterflies, then those are the scripts I go after.

To be honest, I never went to school for acting, and I never learned to break down a script. I took acting classes my whole life, but they never taught me anything about acting. They just taught me about myself.

I'm always like 'I'm too skinny, I can't gain weight, even when I try.' I'd like to try to not let that get to me.

I had never been to Hawaii, and now I say that my body is from L.A. but my heart is from Hawaii, because I'm in love with it and it's home on every level, from a spiritual, soulful place.

I'm already the most fortunate girl in the world, so I have zero expectations for what the future will bring.

George Clooney sort of lost his 'George Clooney-ness' the first day I met him. He's not George Clooney in my eyes - he's George from Kentucky with an awesome, awesome heart.

I'd like to be like a hummingbird. You see them every now and then. You don't see them everywhere.

I would like to do something dark or small. I love independent films. I love emotional scenes. I love people who are struggling with something. I think it's just the juxtaposition to my incredibly happy, positive demeanor.

For me, acting is about the art of it and it's about being on a film set and doing your thing, painting a blank canvas.

So often, I read scripts and am like, 'This would never happen in real life. It's not trying to be funny. It's trying to be serious.'