These are photos of Shailene Woodley with her best bud, Laura Dern, on a lunch run last week. Shailene’s Insurgent press tour is raring up, and so far, so good. I’m pretty sure her PR team told her to stay quiet on feminism this time around. Shailene had an interesting experience with the first Divergent movie. After the movie wrapped, she dumped her worldly possessions and couch surfed for months. I don’t feel like she’s pulling one over on us with this free and easy persona. This is who Shailene really is, but I wonder how she’ll fare long term in the world of Hollywood superficiality. Will she grow weary of the spotlight and playing the same role in her current franchise?

Shailene did a press conference last Friday. She talks about her lack of excitement to return to the Tris role. To be fair, Insurgent was a terrible book — one I would have thrown across the room, had it not been a Kindle edition. People describes Shailene’s attitude as “been there, done that,” which may be accurate:

Returning for Insurgent: “Getting back into Tris was much more difficult than I anticipated because I didn’t take into account that I, myself, had grown for a year. I figured getting back into [Tris] would be simple because I would just go back into that mindset, but my personal mindset had progressed a year in evolution.”

Her role’s shifting requirements: “[In] the first movie, we did a lot of choreography and fight training, and this one was basic sort of fitness — there wasn’t anything too intense. [For the first movie] we were on wires and we would slide down, and there was one where it was almost a 90-degree angle. I was like, ‘If I don’t grab this pole, I’m not going to get hurt, but I’m going to be dangling in the air and probably get a really bad wedgie.’”

On Tris as a role model: “It’s great to have a platform for, not only younger girls, but for everyone to recognize that relationships can be based in truth and be vulnerable, and that keeping somebody at arms length [is a personal defense] to protect our own inner vulnerabilities — not because of anything that they’re doing.”

[From People]

Does Shailene sound ungrateful? She knew Divergent was a franchise, so it’s a tough call. Shailene’s admitting the difficulty in getting back into the mindset. She uses the word “evolution,” but that’s the stuff that always comes out of her mouth. Shailene took some time off, crafted weapons from nature and foraged for leeks. Of course it was a jolt to return to studio life, and yes … Insurgent goes nowhere as a sequel.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN