Shailene Woodley talked about her “debilitating” health condition, and shared it was what caused her to say “no to a lot of projects… because I physically couldn’t participate in them.”
Shailene Woodley, whose next project is the Netflix movie The Last Letter from Your Lover, just opened up about her health condition in a new interview.
The star had previously shared in an interview in 2020 that she was “very, very sick” in her early 20s. Which caused her a lot of pain, and had to decline several roles for not being able to physically star in them.
During her latest chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Shailene talked about her health condition. Previously. she’s shared little about her pain, and mostly kept it private.
She started: “It was pretty debilitating. I said no to a lot of projects, not because I wanted to but because I physically couldn’t participate in them.”
Which lead to a lot of pain: “And I definitely suffered a lot more than I had to because I didn’t take care of myself. The self-inflicted pressure of not wanting to be helped or taken care of created more physical unrest throughout those years.”
But currently things are looking up for her: “I’m on the tail end of it, which is very exciting, but it’s an interesting thing, going through something so physically dominating while also having so many people pay attention to the choices you make, the things you say, what you do, what you look like.”
Shailene also noted on how difficult it is to suffer from something people can’t see: “It spun me out for a while. You feel so incredibly isolated and alone. Unless someone can see that you have a broken arm or a broken leg, it’s really difficult for people to relate to the pain that you’re experiencing when it’s a silent, quiet and invisible pain.”
She had also talked about her career, and how she viewed it as a kid. Surpisingly, Shailene wasn’t dreaming of Oscars at the age of 7. In fact, she dreaded it.
“The day I’m on the cover of a magazine. is the day I’m going to quit. I didn’t want fame. I didn’t have in my head, ‘I want to be at the Oscars one day.’ In school, I never told people I was an actor. Kids would be like, ‘I saw you on My Name Is Earl last night,’ and it was like a taunting, a way of making me feel insecure at the time.”
