"George Clooney is a good arguer" - Shailene Woodley

From the wrap

Shailene Woodley on George Clooney in 'The Descendants': 'He's a Good Arguer'

Published: December 15, 2011

It's nerve-wracking to act alongside George Clooney -- and he knows it. Wednesday night following TheWrap's screening of "The Descendants" at the Landmark Theater, actors Shailene Woodley, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard and Nick Krause -- along with producer Jim Burke -- talked about working with the film's leading man on the family drama.

"It was a challenge to be in some feisty arguments with him. He's a good arguer," Woodley said during TheWrap Awards Screening Series discussion moderated by Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman.

The 20-year-old actress, who plays the rebellious older daughter of Clooney's character, is up for Golden Globe, Independent Spirit and SAG Awards, and recently won a National Board of Review prize for her role in the film.

"He goes out of his way to make you feel comfortable as an actor," Woodley said. "It was exciting for me to learn from him, and have to raise the bar and rise to the occasion."

For his role in "The Descendants," Clooney recently won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor and has been nominated for a SAG Award.

For their own part, Woodley, Greer and Lillard -- along with Clooney, Beau Bridges and Robert Forster -- have been nominated for the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Nominations were announced Wednesday morning.

"I read about it on TheWrap," said Lillard, who was on crutches following surgery a couple of days earlier.

Lillard revealed that he almost didn't audition for the role of real estate agent Brian Speer in Alexander Payne's film. "I've been in most of the bad movies ever made," said the actor, who is best known for his roles in "Scream" and "Scooby Doo." "I had no confidence whatsoever that I'd get the part. A script of this ilk is not in my wheelhouse."

"My biggest fear was that I'd be the joke of the film," he added.

The actor who earns the most laughs in "The Descendants" is actually Krause, who plays the happy-go-lucky teen Sid. Krause said he taped his early video audition for the role on a cell phone.

"I have it somewhere, but it's pretty embarrassing," he said.

Woodley said she found out she landed the role of Alex King after getting a phone call from Payne.

"I have the voicemail saved still," she said.

From smh.com.au

Shailene's dark alter ego January 6, 2012

By Jenny Cooney Carrillo.

Shailene Woodley celebrated her 20th birthday standing on stage at the Hollywood premiere of her drama The Descendants, with co-star George Clooney leading the audience in an impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday.

''This whole experience has been bizarre,'' Woodley says. ''On set, I would frequently have these surreal moments of looking up and seeing George Clooney and being in Hawaii and thinking, 'What did I do to deserve to get here?'''

Clooney, 50, believes it's sheer talent. ''I think she's a young Debra Winger,'' he says of his co-star, who was nominated for a Golden Globe in her supporting role, as was Clooney, the director and the film. ''She's a very special girl and I think she's going to have an amazing career.''

In The Descendants, directed by Alexander (Sideways) Payne, Clooney plays an indifferent husband and father of two girls who is forced to re-examine his past when his wife has a boating accident near their home in Hawaii and winds up in a coma.

Woodley plays his oldest daughter, Alexandra, a moody and rebellious teenager who unexpectedly bonds with her father when she tells him a devastating secret about her mother.

Woodley, an actor since she was five, is best known for the TV series The Secret Life of the American Teenager, in which she plays a popular high school student who becomes pregnant. She laughs at the observation that she is much more upbeat in person than recent roles would suggest.

''I'm such a happy, optimistic person that some people get annoyed,'' she says. ''But … I must have a really dark alter ego, because, growing up, I was always getting cast as the murderer on CSI or the little girl who pushed her mum off the balcony on Without a Trace. Subconsciously, I think my body needs to get out the darkness.''

The Descendants features one of the most flawed characters Clooney has portrayed and the actor embraced the challenge.

''I felt like this was a good place to talk about your fears in getting older and loss in your life,'' he says.

''I'm not out to try and prove anything any more, so now I get to just play in the sandbox and this seemed like a good place to do that.''

From the Express

George Clooney taught me to be human

THE recent Golden Globe Awards didn’t stir up the expected controversy from host Ricky Gervais who was on muted form.
Instead, more headlines were made by the unconventional footwear of rising star Shailene Woodley, 21, the talented co-star of George Clooney in the night’s big winner, the Descendants.

Making her first appearance at an awards ceremony, Woodley, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, exchanged her heels after the ceremony for a pair of Vibram “Five Finger” toe-shoes, which appalled fashionistas when Woodley, made her entrance at the Warner Bros party.

Fashion and celebrity website Jezebel described them as “hideous” but Woodley found plenty of champions on the twittersphere who applauded her stand for comfortable footwear.

It is clear she is a down-to-earth sort happier messing about outdoors than showboating on the red carpet.

“I like doing weird things like archery, hiking, rock climbing and foraging for food,” she says.

So she is not about to have her head turned by the hoopla surrounding the Descendants even if she struggled to contain her emotions after learning she had landed the prized role of George Clooney’s daughter.

“I was in my New York apartment when Alexander [Payne, the director] called me and told me I’d got it and I started crying for a few hours,” she remembers.

The star of a popular US TV show called the Secret Life Of An American teenager (in which her 15-year-old character faces the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy), the actress, who started acting when she was eight, can hardly have hoped to make a more auspicious movie debut.

Co-written and directed by Payne, best known for his wine-buff comedy Sideways, it is a bittersweet family drama based on the novel by Hawaiian writer Kaui Hart Hemmings.

Clooney stars as Matt King, a smoothie lawyer in Hawaii, whose life unravels after his wife falls into a coma following a waterskiing accident.

Woodley has the plum role of Alexandra, his eldest daughter and a combative and rebellious teenager who unexpectedly helps him overcome his mid-life crisis (Clooney has described the film as a “coming- of-age-story” about a 50-year-old man).

“I really wanted the role because she’s raw and messy and human and the script didn’t glamorise her or beautify her in any way and that’s so rare to read in scripts,” she says.

“The entire screenplay as a whole was very real and truthfully written.”

The film recently scooped Best Drama at the Golden Globes, beating off the more hotly fancied The Help and War Horse, and Woodley was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the film. The film has also been nominated for five Oscars, including best actor for Clooney.

“The film has already exceeded any expectations I had,” she says.

She certainly landed the jackpot when she got the role: starring opposite Clooney and filming in Hawaii, preceded by three weeks of research to “get to know the culture”.

It was during that period, she says, that she and Clooney “bonded”. “I think he knows that it must be intimidating for people to work with him for the first time so he went out of his way to make me feel comfortable. He was so down-to-earth and grounded you forget he’s ‘George Clooney’, he just becomes George.”

Or, in her case, “dad”. The pair’s combustible but touching relationship lies at the heart of the picture as self-described “back-up” parent Matt fumbles his way towards various truths about himself and his family,aided by his precocious but vulnerable daughter.

Off Screen, by contrast, it was Clooney who imparted the wisdom to Woodley. “He gave me a lot of tips on the politics of this industry, things that prepared me for this whole process,” she says.

“He also taught me about being a better human being. He’s the most generous and grateful person I’ve ever met in my life and I got to learn kindness and gratitude and happiness and generosity.”

A well known on-set prankster, Clooney reigned in the hi-jinks, says Woodley, as the production had a “family atmosphere” (her younger sister was played by then 10-year-old Amara Miller).

“We didn’t get any big pranks but he is the wittiest man I’ve ever met.

“You can say something and within two seconds he has a hilarious retort. It’s just obscene the rate at which his mind operates.”

"He also taught me about being a better human being. He’s the most generous and grateful person I’ve ever met in my life and I got to learn kindness and gratitude and happiness and generosity.”

Katiedot wrote:

"He also taught me about being a better human being. He’s the most generous and grateful person I’ve ever met in my life and I got to learn kindness and gratitude and happiness and generosity.”

I liked this. It says a lot about George that I don't usually think of when I think about him.

cindigirl wrote:Most people put George on a pedestal

“He also taught me about being a better human being. He’s the most generous and grateful person I’ve ever met in my life and I got to learn kindness and gratitude and happiness and generosity.”

melbert wrote:I know he's not perfect, but I love all his little IMperfections. That's what brings it home for me. And, he's kinda cute...