In the upcoming episode of Divergent 2: Alien Awakening, Sherlyn Woodleigh cut her hair short and describes it as too vulgar as "unisex beauty" rather than "likable hermaphrodite" — an effect many people want to see, or the only expectation for Woodleigh: Will she be the next Jennifer Lawrence?
Not a child star, but a child actor
Sherlyn Woodley's 2015 started well, winning "Best Actress" at the MTV Film Awards in April for "The Fault of Star Luck" – an award that was divided equally between Kristen Stewart and Lawrence in the first six years. At the same time, Woodley also won the "Best KissIng Scene" and "Pioneering Rising Star", and she has never been so confident standing on the podium.
"I wasn't so confident before," Woodley said in an interview after the awards, "I started acting at the age of 5, but I took a lot of blows over a long period of time." One of the "many blows" woodley spoke of occurred 15 years ago, in the casting for "I Am Sam," where 9-year-old Woodley lost to 6-year-old Dakota Fanning. She stood behind Fanning in disbelief and did not want to leave. Dad pulled her aside and said, "I see anger in your eyes, you care too much about this character." Now, I want you to close your eyes and imagine this girl named Dakota, I want you to offer her the most sincere blessings and love, and one day you will get the role you want. ”
But her father's encouragement didn't change Woodley's stardom, when the girl named Dakota starred as Tom Cruise's daughter in "War of the Worlds", Woodley was still starring in various painless TV commercials, and did not play her first heroine in ABC's family drama "Whispers of Youth" until the age of 16. "I'm just a successful child actor, not a famous child star," Woodley defines her childhood.
In fact, the role of the eldest daughter in "Descendants" that made Woodleigh famous did not belong to her originally. After the first round of auditions, the casting director annotated two words on the small book - "elimination". Director Alexander Payne kept Woodley because "she has a magic power that makes a bad script funny."
The director didn't look away. In the scene in the swimming pool in "Descendants", the script only writes "she dived into the water and her expression was distorted", but Woodleigh proposed to change it to "screaming underwater", because she often used the same way to vent her emotions as a child. The director agreed to let Woodley play freely, and the scene ended up only four times. After the film's release, the New York Times described Woodley as "one of the most difficult, intelligent, and convincing performances in recent years." ”
Since then, Woodley has begun answering questions she had never considered before: "What's next movie?" "Do you think you can take an Oscar?" "What are you going to wear on the Oscar red carpet?" Woodley asked, "Is there a necessary connection between what I wear and taking the Oscars?" If so, then I'll just leave it naked. And the answer she got was: "If you really don't wear clothes, maybe you can really win an Oscar." ”
So, in "White Bird in a Snowstorm", Woodleigh really took off her clothes. But such nude scenes are not pleasant visual ice cream, but reminiscent of the nude scenes of Kate Winslet in Jane Campion's Holy Smoke – all perverse and uncomfortable nude scenes can only be explained by "dedication to art". Woodley's reasoning is simple: "In reality, people don't have sex in bras and panties." ”
A generation that lives in the shadow of the eldest cousin
Alex Madigen, producer of White Bird in a Snowstorm, was also a producer for Winter's Bones, the latter of which earned Jennifer Lawrence's first Post-Oscar nomination. Speaking of Woodley and Lawrence, Alex felt that "their career trajectories are similar, but Lawrence would not act in a movie like WhiteBird in a Snowstorm." ”
But Woodley would go to "Lawrence-like" movies. "Divergent", based on the best-selling youth novel of the same name, is another "teen IP series" created by Lionsgate Pictures according to the model of "The Hunger Games". Woodley plays the heroine Beatrice, a female warrior who is reluctant to follow order and rules in a dystopian world.
Before taking on the role, Woodleigh sent an email to Jennifer Lawrence to get some advice from the "senior" who was a year older than her, after all, the game played by the new generation of Hollywood actresses now has rules established by the "big cousin": in the past, genre films and themes were a big shackle to the development of actresses, and even a superstar like Julia Roberts would not play the role of "beating women". But Lawrence pushed this limit, and she developed on both A-class productions and independent films, completely unconstrained by genre and subject matter. This gives the impression that "the big cousin always gets a good role," even if the character itself doesn't match her age or seniority at all — like the widow in The Happy Line Behind the Clouds and the bitch in The American Hoax.
Lawrence only told Woodley about some of the negative effects of taking on The Divergent, such as the fact that there was almost no personal space after becoming famous, and she did not say a more brutal truth: Go my way, it is quite possible to be completely suppressed by me: look at Kristen Stewart, without vampire and werewolf protection, you can only struggle in the B-class quagmire; Lily Collins, who wanted to get to the top through a bad film like the Holy Grail, is now completely disqualified; Emma Watson in Harry Potter. After that, it is more suitable for the feminist movement; the only person who can pose a threat is Emma Stone, but isn't she also finished playing in the "Amazing Spider-Man" series?
Woodley had no other choice, she took on "The Divergent" and also "The Fault in the Stars" - she played a young girl with lung cancer in the film, and was a brave character like Beatrice in "The Divergent". Woodley hopes to put an end to the history of "the girl with the catheter in her nose that never appears on the movie poster."
In terms of box office results, with nearly $300 million in global revenue, "Divergent" at least did not fail, but Woodleigh had to bear to be compared with Lawrence for a long time afterwards. While promoting The Divergent, Woodleigh was on a talk show, and when the host asked her how she felt about the comparison with Lawrence, Woodleigh replied, "Comparison only leads to despair." The audience gave this answer a harsh boo, and Woodley tried to defend herself: "Women, when you go to school, you have to compare yourself with your classmates, after work, you have to compare with colleagues, and when you come home, you have to compare with models in fashion magazines... I admire Jennifer Lawrence, but always compare the two of us together, just because we both have short hair and both have vaginas? This passage may give Lawrence a thumbs up, but the program side eventually cut out all of this statement.
The realm of running
A week after the talk show incident, Woodleigh hugged all the reporters in the media district and many fans on the Los Angeles red carpet of Divergents. Her embraces are very special: left and right, for the same duration. She hugged her with strangers, which made many people think she was doing a kind of performance art, but she responded: Hugs are the most authentic way to communicate, give you a hug, so you know that Sherlyn Woodley is a flesh-and-blood actor.
The media and movie fans often use the same word to describe Woodley and Lawrence: grounded. But Lawrence belongs to the "grounding gas" who fell down on the red carpet, ate candy at a media conference, and answered questions with a straight heart, while Woodley's grounding is entirely literal: she is an almost paranoid naturalist, superstitious about various Chinese herbs, such as brushing her teeth with mud, and then whitening her teeth with sesame oil for 20 minutes – this folk remedy is said to have been heard from a taxi driver; she basically does not take medicine for a cold and fever, but uses pine needles to make tea and drink...
Woodley was paid $250,000 for the first Divergent and $500,000 when Lawrence starred in the first Hunger Games. Today, Woodley's salary has risen to 9 million, and Lawrence has officially become a member of the 20 million club with the new film "Passenger". Coupled with a film queen and three nominations pressed on him, Lawrence will be cautious every step of the way in the future — if the box office is unfavorable or the Oscars are missed, it will be seen as a failure. And that's woodley's strength, because now she doesn't have to prove anything, she has nothing to lose.
Like Lawrence, who doesn't have a Twitter account, Woodleigh doesn't care about her exposure on social media, and as soon as she completes her promotional work, she quickly "disappears" — she has no fixed address, she barely uses her phone, and her favorite thing to do is run to a friend's house for a while, or book a cheap house on airbnb and go to Europe for a while.
In the industry's view, all of Woodley's "unruly" behaviors represent that she belongs to the "dissidents" of hollywood's new generation of actors, rather than the "threats" who try to disrupt the old order. No matter how the times change, Hollywood stars are never the result of "personal charisma", but the "personal reputation" produced by industry. Woodley has been immersed in this circle since childhood, she is very familiar with this set, she knows that her personality will also be marketed by the studio as a "commodity", which is the same as the "big cousin"'s public relations methods.
This article was first published in Popular Film Magazine, No. 10, 2015 Editor/Xu Yuan Written/Li Xuan
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