Shailene Woodley Reflects On The Impact Of Starting Her Career Young

Shailene Woodley started acting at a young age, with early roles in TV shows like "The O.C." and "Crossing Jordan," but she didn't gain significant recognition for her role as Amy Juergens in "The Secret Life of the American Teenager."

More recently, she starred in the HBO series "Big Little Lies," alongside Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Laura Dern, which further solidified her status as a leading actress.

Now that Shailene Woodley has entered her 30s, the actress is reflecting back on her childhood and growing up in Hollywood.

When speaking to Bustle, Woodley admitted that she has "always been a little bit of a late bloomer," and she's "learning things at 32 that many of my friends learned at 20."

While launching her Hollywood career at a young age had played a role in her upbringing, she said, "In other ways, I feel like I’ve known things since I was born that many of my friends haven’t figured out yet."

The actress, who says she didn't go through puberty until she was 15 and a half and didn't have her kiss until later in high school, "had this desire to be taken seriously on a film set."

"I had this quality that was a bit know-it-all, and it came out of a survival instinct of, 'If I know everything, then I’ll be accepted anywhere,'" she told the outlet. "I read a lot. I’ve studied many subjects. I’m kind of a nerd and science freak. I love everything from quantum physics to epigenetics to neuroscience."

Now that she is older, she asks more questions, but when she was younger, Woodley "felt like I had to be the one with the answers [or] the whole world would fall apart," though she acknowledged that to be "completely untrue."

"But the narrative crafted was: Everything is dependent on my ability to be aware, responsible, accountable, knowledgeable, and professional, for family and for career," she added.

Over the years, like anybody else, Woodley had to navigate staying true to herself and figuring out her own path.  "For better or for worse, I’ve just been who I am," she revealed. "I get called weird a lot. It’s humorous because I actually think I'm very normal and boring. I’m drawn to the simple things in life, like a flower on the street or a smile from anyone. So I’ve never really had to figure out how to navigate it because I just always did me."

Throughout Woodley's 20s, when she wasn’t working, she said she was living in Europe "bouncing on and off trains and in and out of hostels, meeting people and couch-surfing and volunteering on farms around the world."

"I didn’t do it on purpose to escape Hollywood. I did it because it was what fascinated me," she clarified.

There seems to be a mixed reaction when it comes to social media and actors. While some appreciate social media because they can speak directly to the public, others, including Selena Gomez, have had to take breaks due to the toxicity they faced.

As for Woodley, she said she is "just trying to figure it out."

"I’m like, damn, I do one thing that someone doesn’t understand — not even [disagrees with], doesn’t understand — and there isn’t a question of, 'I wonder what she means by that,'" the actress said. "It’s an immediate, 'Oh, she’s this type of a person,' which is just a dangerous thing that’s happening in general these days."

"Instead of being inquisitive to try and dissect and discover, we pigeonhole and cancel," Woodley continued. "Man, it’s so destructive."

Woodley has mostly kept her love life under wraps, but when it came to her romance with ex Aaron Rodgers, it didn’t take long for it to make major headlines. Ultimately, the two split, which Woodley has considered when deciding not to care so much about performing for others.

"I fell in love over and over with unavailability," she told Bustle. "I’m very open as a human. I love easy and I care easy, but I do not love lightly, and I do not care lightly."

Woodley added, "It’s really taken me a lot of time to understand that it’s not on me to fix or heal or do anything about [a relationship] other than protect the deep care and love that I have for the world and for my people. Ultimately, that has helped me walk away without the need to understand why certain things didn’t play out the way that I may have desired them to."

When looking to the future, the "Big Little Lies" actress says all she wants is to "wake up feeling content" and "go to sleep content. "

"Between those two moments, I’d like it to feel raw and real and expressive and deep and meaningful and simple and profound," she added. "Other than that, I leave a lot of room for magic. I want to be an actor and artist for the rest of my life. I want to create and tell meaningful stories. I want to find a person to do life with, and have a family. And I want to watch the sunset."