Why Shailene Woodley, Not J-Law, Is Hollywood’s Next Big

Shailene Woodley has for a couple of years now been dubbed Hollywood’s “next big thing.” It’s a dangerous term, but with a leading role in a franchise positioned to be the next Hunger Games, the 27-year-old could find herself as the next leading lady pretty quickly.

Shailene Woodley [R] in ‘Divergent’

With Jennifer Lawrence now an Oscar-winning actress and a woman at the very top of every director’s wish-list, there is a genuine gap for Woodley to exploit.

We’ve written plenty on the Divergent franchise, though Woodley’s best work may be found in several other forthcoming movies. In The Fault in Our Stars, based on John Green’s novel about two teenagers who fall in love via a cancer support group, is set to be released in June and if festival buzz is anything to go by, will quite easily become one of the most talked about movies of the year. 

Woodley showed true promise in Alexander Payne’s drama The Descendants with George Clooney and she goes further in White Bird in a Blizzard – an independent movie that recently debuted at Sundance Film Festival. 

Watch the trailer for Divergent:

In ‘Divergent’, Woodley plays Beatrice ‘Tris’ Brior, who lives in a futuristic Chicago where people are divided into five distinct factions based on their personalities. Discovering that she is in-fact a ‘Divergent,’ – meaning she does not fit into any one faction – Tris soon uncovers a sinister plot brewing in her ‘perfect society’.