Shailene, was it intimidating for you to come into sort of a heroic type of YA literature role?
Shailene: It was intimidating because of the word heroic. I don’t think Tris is a hero necessarily–she’s not a super hero and she’s not like an action star, she’s just a normal girl who’s put in a very elevated situation and she has to rise to the occasion. Just in the same way had it been Christina who had been in this situation, she would have risen to that event. I don’t think that Tris is more special than anyone else, she’s just the one that has to be girl who has to get her sh*t together.
Zoe: (laughs) Get your sh*t together.
Do you relate to your characters in any way?
Shailene: You relate to yours a lot right?
Zoe: Yeah, because I can’t keep my mouth shut? Yes I do, I do. Christina’s like, she’s brave and she’s wacky and she’s honest. I have no filter either.
Shailene: They’re both Sagittarius.
Zoe: It’s true.
Were you excited when you got the parts?
Shailene: Very excited. Yeah, I was more excited when she got the part.
Zoe: Aww.
Were you guys friends before this?
Zoe: No.
Shailene: SUCH good friends. Yeah, we met doing this. We had a lot of mutual friends.
You guys are obviously wearing very different costumes. How much does it help you to step out of those and into Dauntless?
Shailene: You want to take that?
Zoe: Go for it.
Shailene: Well, you see right now I’m wearing some laundry cloths…some kitchen wipes. Um, no I think the Dauntless clothes are very cool because they’re very tactical based and Carlo the designer did a really good job at making them functional as well as physical beautiful for the eyes to look at. And so to transform obviously from going into a dress to leggings that you can move and run and kick in is a pretty big difference.
Zoe: Yeah I mean the Dauntless outfits are badass–you feel tougher depending on what you’re wearing. I put on my big army boots and I’m ready to fight.
There was lots of chemistry testing to find the right Four and fans are really excited to see that on screen. Can you tell us anything about the chemistry?
Shailene: Yeah
Zoe: Through the roof!
Shailene: Whhaatt, outta control! Theo’s great, he’s awesome I mean we relate on a very human level with each other. Everyone gets along really great, I know I’m supposed to be talking about Theo, so I’ll go back to Theo.
Zoe: (laughs) But Theo
Shailene: But Theo
Why is he the perfect Four?
Shailene: He’s the perfect Four because he’s very similar to Four in real life. Theo’s very mysterious in some ways. He was also a philosophy major so he had a life completely different from this for a long time. He’s traveled the world, he’s a very worldly human being.
Zoe: He’s also really good-looking.
Shailene: He’s also gorgeous to look at.
Shailene: Oh sh*t, sorry. Theo. He was a philosophy major so he’s got a lot of different experiences outside of the acting world which I think add to his character and to him as a human being. He’s very professional and doesn’t take anything too seriously which is really important.
Zoe: He’s super goofy.
Shailene: He’s super goofy. It’s really exciting to see him be like the “hot new thing” that all these girls are going to go after, like you don’t know Theo.
Zoe: Yeah, he’s just a dork.
Shailene: He’s a dork.
Did you guys know about Divergent before you auditioned or was it something you heard about later?
Shailene: I was kind of given, we were given the book to read…did you? (turns to Zoe)
Zoe: I read the script first when I was just auditioning for it and then once I got it I was like I guess I should read.
Shailene: When I was auditioning for it, there wasn’t a script for it so I read the book so that’s what turned me on to it.
You had talked, I guess at Sundance when you were doing The Spectacular Now, you had talked about there were some parts of Divergent you could use as like a platform to teach the public.
Shailene: Oh hell yeah.
So what, I mean could you be more specific?
Shailene: Yeah I mean, metaphorically this movie has a lot of interesting themes woven into it everything from, in Divergent they get injected with the serum and the government can control their minds and yet today we’re chipping dogs, we’re chipping babies, like as a society. There’s a lot of things that are going on and then as far as like food goes, in the book Veronica Roth, she has a line that goes ‘back in the day, people used to have a choice whether to buy genetically modified food or not. Now, that’s all that exists.’ And I think that that’s really, really important for our society, modern day, to look at because all these other companies are taking over and it’s kind of becoming a corporate world and we as the people have the power to say something now. Just in the same that way Tris has the power to go up against Jeanine so I mean…I could go on for hours.
What has been your favorite day on set?
Shailene: Oh Zoe, tell them…your favorite day!
Zoe: Sh*t…what day, is there a day I should be remembering…oh we did crowd surfing! We had this amazing day where we got to like crowd surf for like 45 minutes straight.
Shailene: It was so fun. So fun. In the cafeteria.
Zoe: All the Dauntless born picked us up. Yeah we had lots of hamburgers.
Shailene: So many hamburgers…so many hamburger.
Zoe: That was a good day.
Shailene: It was a good day.
Zoe: (to Shailene) What was your favorite day?
Shailene: The ferris wheel was one of my favorite days. Just ‘cause that was badass. I’ll probably never get to climb a ferris wheel again. And I got to be on a ferris wheel for like 14 hours with Theo.
Zoe: Romance.
Shailene: ROMANCE.
Zoe: Hashtag romance.
Shailene: Hashtag romance…and bromance.
Zoe: What?
Shailene: What?
Zoe, you’re not on Twitter are you?
Zoe: No