Shailene Woodley said she had the “darkest, hardest time” of her life while filming a forthcoming series.
The 31-year-old Big Little Lies actress stars in Three Women, which explores the lives of women through sex and relationships.
Speaking to Net-A-Porter’s digital title, Porter, about filming the Showtime series between October 2021 and May 2022, Woodley said: “It was hard to film because I was going through the darkest, hardest time in my life; it was winter in New York, and my personal life was shitty, so it felt like a big pain bubble for eight months.
“I was so grateful that at least I could go to work and cry and process my emotions through my character.”
Woodley, also known for the Divergent series of films and romantic drama The Fault In Our Stars, confirmed she had become engaged to American football quarterback Aaron Rodgers in February 2021.
The following year, in March, People magazine reported they had split up.
While discussing social media, Woodley also told Porter: “It honestly never really hit me that millions of people around the world were actually watching these things and paid attention to them.
“Then, I dated somebody in America, who was very, very famous. It was the first time that I’d had a quote-unquote ‘famous’ relationship, and I watched (the) scrutiny, opinions, the desire for people to know my life and his life and our life – it just felt violating in a way that, before, it was fun.”
Showtime said Three Women, which also includes performances from She’s Gotta Have It’s DeWanda Wise, GLOW’s Betty Gilpin and In My Skin’s Gabrielle Creevy, is about the “haunting portrayal of American female desire” and three women “on a crash course to radically overturn their lives”.
Woodley said she was “very struck” by the exploration of sex and intimacy when reading the novel of the same name by Lisa Taddeo, which won a prize at the British Book Awards in 2020 and became a bestseller.
“I had, at a very young age, become obsessed with sex and intimacy, and the way that we relate to it as Americans,” she added.
She also said she is “frustrated” by supposedly empowering tales for women that do not actually help women.
Woodley added: “The conversation I had with Lisa was about that; we’re not here trying to make a show that’s championing women all around the world to become the best versions of themselves – it’s a show that’s just acknowledging the reality that women face.”
– To read the full interview with Woodley, go to https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-gb/porter/article-6735f3ca5e559850