Shailene Woodley Quotes

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.

My job as an actress is to make things work and come up with reasons of my own and not just fill in the blanks for anybody else, you know what I mean?

I came to the industry with wide eyes and an open heart thinking I was going to make a few films that really meant something that I could pour myself into.

For me, it has always been about acting and I will do films which are content-driven.

The pleasure from acting comes from having great writing to work with. If it's well written and the character is interesting, then, as an actor, that's the raw material I need.

I put a lot of time and energy and thought behind what I do and the characters that I create, and I don't want to do anything peripheral that is going to make an audience see me up there on the screen rather than who I'm playing.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

You pick projects for the part, the director, and the script. I just want to do different, interesting stuff.

I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

See, that's the thing: I'm not one of those actors who thinks, 'God, I've got to improvise and make it my own.' No, my first job as an actor is to take what's written and make it work. And then, if they want me to improvise, I'll do that.

You try to pick good stories, and that's pretty much all the control you have as an actor.

As an actor, I have to be fulfilled in the roles that I play; it has to be a journey for me to learn something or involve myself.

A passion for any novel, and any character, can crystallise your ideas when you really need to be as open as possible as a performer.

I love the process of discovering a new world - that's why I'm passionate about acting. It's just discovering life, feelings, ideas and thought.

I kind of found a niche for myself after 'Firefly'. I found something that I enjoyed doing and that I did well, but as far as how I seek out a part, it's always different. It's always something that lights you on fire when you read it. It might be just one scene, it might be one line that defines the character for you.

So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.

Every role is challenging in its own way, but the most challenging roles are the ones that are badly written - then it's completely up to you to come up with something that is interesting to the story and myself as an actor.

I don't look at scripts in terms of commerciality. I just look at the part, the people involved.

Doing acting opened up other creative outlets; it made me feel freer as an artist.

The films I want to make, I really want to be passionate about.

As an actor, I've always found that my job is not to judge the content in which I've agreed to perform in. What I try to do is just find the truth in every moment that they've written.

The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the breeze, the actor should be an instrument played upon by the character he depicts.

What made me fall in love with acting, which is my life, was watching other people perform. It made me hunger to do that.

Act because you love to act.