The 'Divergent' beauty talks about her early career as a struggling actress, claiming she was left battling self-esteem because of the callous comments about her acnes.
- August 4, 2021
AceShowbiz - Shailene Woodley's acting career hit a low in her late teens after a callous agent told her to quit auditioning because she was so spotty.
An acne break-out left the "Divergent" star feeling insecure for two years and the comments by the insensitive executive didn't help.
She was advised to start taking birth control medication to resolve her acne troubles, and sit out screen tests until her spots had cleared.
Shailene also suffered a career blip in her 20s as her aides and managers started to tell her to be less like the woman she was becoming.
"I was so strong-headed and free-willed, so rooted in the core of who I was... but in my mid-20s I went through a couple of years feeling insecure about the choices I was making, believing the opinions of others a little bit too much, not staying on my path," she tells The Observer.
"The Fault in Our Stars" actress also recalls being told she needed to be "more cosmopolitan" and "to dress a certain way, to think a certain way, to not say certain things."
Meanwhile, in a separate interview, Shailene Woodley previously said she couldn't take on many projects because of health issues.
"It was pretty debilitating," she revealed. "I said no to a lot of projects, not because I wanted to but because I physically couldn't participate in them. 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."
