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Daniel Woodley Biography & Facts

Shailene Diann Woodley (born November 15, 1991) is an American actress. Born in San Bernardino, California, she was raised in Simi Valley, and started modeling at the age of five and began acting professionally in minor television roles. She first gained prominence for her starring role as Amy Juergens in the ABC Family teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013). She subsequently starred in the films The Descendants (2011) and The Spectacular Now (2013), receiving a nomination for her first Golden Globe Award for the former. Woodley achieved wider recognition for her starring role as a teenaged cancer patient in the romantic drama The Fault in Our Stars (2014) and as Beatrice Prior in the science-fiction trilogy The Divergent Series (2014–2016). She played a sexual assault survivor in the HBO drama series Big Little Lies (2017–2019), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. She has since played supporting roles in the films Snowden (2016), The Mauritanian (2021) and Ferrari (2023), and starred in Adrift (2018), The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021) and To Catch a Killer (2023). Woodley is also an environmental activist. She is a Greenpeace Oceans Ambassador and has helped the organization lobby for certain environmental policy proposals, notably the High Seas Treaty and the Global Plastic Pollution Treaty. She is a member of the Conservation International's Leadership Council and GoodLeap's Advisory Council. She also serves as a board member of the political action committee, Our Revolution and a co-founder of the nonprofit organization All it Takes, which focuses on youth development. Early life Woodley was raised in Simi Valley, California. Both her parents are psychologists. Her mother, Lori (née Victor), is a middle school counselor, and her father, Lonnie, is a former school principal and a family therapist. Woodley has a younger brother, Tanner. Her parents separated when she was fourteen. Woodley was discovered by an agent while she was taking a local theater class, which was part of a $700 program she begged her parents to enroll her in after accompanying her cousin to a theater class in her hometown. At the age of five, she began working in commercials, including advertisements for Leapfrog, Hertz and a Honda minivan, appearing in more than sixty TV spots before she turned eleven years old. She told The Hollywood Reporter that her parents only agreed to allow her to work professionally if she promised to adhere to three rules: "I had to stay the person they knew I was; have fun; and do good in school". Woodley was a 4.0 student, who took AP classes and graduated at Simi Valley High School. In order to graduate with her class while starring in an ABC Family TV show, which she booked in the middle of her junior year, a teacher would go to her house once a week and bring all the work she missed at school, which she would do at home or in her trailer on set, in-between takes. She considered studying Interior Design at New York University (NYU) but never had the chance to, as her acting career became more demanding since she signed on to star in The Secret Life of the American Teenager. During a hiatus from her TV show, Woodley took a job at American Apparel in New York City. Two days into the new job, she got a call to meet with director Alexander Payne and after two months, she had to quit the job after joining the film The Descendants. She also took acting classes from Anthony Meindl. At fifteen, she was diagnosed with scoliosis and was put in a chest-to-hips plastic brace for two years. Woodley told Us Weekly that "It's like wearing a tacky, disgusting, plastic corset for 18 hours a day. In the beginning, it was hard to eat or breathe. And I had to give up cross-country running. But I needed to have it to realign my spine". Her condition did not affect her work on set as she "would [just] take the brace off during filming and put it back on during breaks". Career 1999–2010: Career beginnings and Secret Life Woodley began her acting career in 1999 with a minor role in the television film Replacing Dad. She went on to feature in minor television roles in The District and Crossing Jordan (in the latter, she portrayed the 10-year-old version of Jill Hennessy's title character). She followed with a leading role in the television film A Place Called Home (2004) as California Ford, which earned her a nomination for a Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actress in a TV Movie, Miniseries or Special. She also originally played the young Kaitlin Cooper in The O.C. She appeared as the titular character Felicity Merriman in the television film Felicity: An American Girl Adventure (2005). Her performance received another Young Artist Award nomination, this time for Best Performance in a TV Movie, Miniseries, or Special (Comedy or Drama). Following this, Woodley appeared in numerous guest roles in other television series, including Everybody Loves Raymond, My Name is Earl, CSI: NY, Close to Home, and Cold Case. Woodley was cast as the main character, Amy Juergens, in the ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013), about a 15-year-old girl who learns she is pregnant. The show explores the effects of her pregnancy on her family, friends and herself, as well as life at Grant High School. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly praised her performance, stating, "[It] lifts a well-meaning, rather brave, but ramshackle show a notch." Popular among viewers, the show became one of ABC Family's most-watched telecasts throughout its five-season run, spanning over 121 episodes. 2011–2014: Film debut and breakthrough In 2011, Woodley made her feature film debut in Alexander Payne's The Descendants, where she played Alex, the troubled elder daughter of Matt King (played by George Clooney). Her performance received positive reviews from critics. A. O. Scott from The New York Times said, "Ms. Woodley [gives] one of the toughest, smartest, most credible adolescent performances in recent memory." Peter Debruge from Variety said that her performance is a "revelation" and that "in the role of Alex, [she is] displaying both the edge and depth the role demands." Following accolades for her performance, Woodley received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Consequently, she was awarded the Trophée Chopard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival Virtuoso Award. People named her one of 2012's "Most Beautiful at Every Age." Woodley was also considered one of the 55 faces of the future by Nylon's "Young Hollywood Issue". She also received the Emerging Star Spotlight Award at Elle's 20th Annual "Women In Hollywood". Woodley starred in the film adaptation of Tim Tharp's novel, The Spectacular Now, as Aimee Finecky, an innocent, bookish teenager who begi.... Discover the Daniel Woodley popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Daniel Woodley books.