Shailene Woodley made a rare comment about her friendship with former costar Ansel Elgort.
“Ansel Elgort is to this day one of my best friends,” Woodley, 34, said in an interview with Variety shared via the outlet’s YouTube page on Thursday, May 21. “I feel like he transcends the label of best friend. He is like family to me. I love him so, so deeply.”
Woodley and Elgort, 32, worked together on both The Fault in Our Stars and the Divergent films. They met for the first time on the set of the first Divergent film, which premiered in 2014. Woodley and Elgort played siblings Tris and Caleb, respectively. As they got to know each other on set, they formed a fast friendship.
“When we were doing the first divergent movie, we really connected, and we became sort of instant siblings,” she recalled on Thursday, “The dynamic between us is always very sweet, and it was very supportive, and he would come over to my house, and we would cook and just talk for hours after work.”
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After working on that movie, Woodley and Elgort reunited to star in the 2014 movie The Fault in Our Stars, where they ended up playing love interests Hazel and Gus, respectively.
“When I heard he was auditioning for Fault in Our Stars. I was like ‘Oh that’s sweet, but like obviously it’s never gonna happen because he’s my brother in Divergent, like there’s no world where [that happens] … And then he was cast,” she said. “You know, he’s kind of the only person on Earth who could’ve played Gus.”
Woodley explained that her and Elgort’s real-life connection made their characters’ chemistry stronger on screen.
“I think actually what made our relationship in that movie as tender as it was and as truly like unconditionally loving as it was [because] Ansel and I do genuinely love one another,” she shared. “It’s so rare that you get to see love explored without intimacy, and although there is intimacy between Hazel and Gus, the core of it is just unconditional love. It’s two people walking each other home. It’s two people who have a desire to only be supportive to one another, and make the other person feel a little less lonely in a chaotic world.”
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In the film, which is based on the best-selling novel written by John Green, Woodley and Elgort’s characters had multiple romantic scenes. The Big Little Lies actress confessed it was “awkward” to film those intimate moments with Elgort.
“Of course it was awkward when we had to do intimacy scenes together, cause I remember [us] laughing in between takes a little bit together,” she said. “I know everything about you, that is so weird that we have to take our shirts off.”
Woodley and Elgort last worked together in 2016 on the final installment of the Divergent series. Since then, they have remained close and even took a trip to Italy together in 2022.