Shailene Woodley may be the star of the new film The Fault In Our Stars, but there was a time when she thought about giving up acting. She claimed that the pressure she felt after her critically acclaimed movie debut in The Descendants, was almost unbearable and she felt as though she would never be able to do that well again.

“Somebody came to me and said, ‘I can’t wait to see what you do next.’ I took that as pressure – that I had to live up to somebody else’s expectations.

“There were a few months where I was like, ‘I don’t want to act anymore.’ And then I got over it and realized it’s none of my business what other people think of me,” she said.

Woodley decided to give acting another try and got the lead role in Divergent. Unfortunately, she also got cut from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 role as Mary Jane Watson.

“For a few hours it was literally like, ‘Oh, my God, was I awful? Why did they cut me? What are people going to think? I woke up the next morning and I was like, ‘Ok it makes total sense.’ I’m a pretty spiritual person, so I can just sit back and trust that everything happens for a reason, even if my ego doesn’t like it,” she said.

Woodley also admitted that she continues to feel the same pressure after every role she plays and expects it to get worse as her career continues. She hopes to use the pressure to make her a better actress. She said that she is learning to get over caring what other people think as long as she knows she is doing well.

You simply cannot know what will make others happy. But you can always know for yourself.

— Shailene Woodley (@shailenewoodley) November 21, 2013

There is one person whose opinion she might care about, her costar in The Descendants, George Clooney. He recently praised Woodley for her acting skills saying,

“Shailene can do whatever she wants. If she wants to be a movie star, she has it. If she wants to change the world, she will. Her talent and kindness go hand in hand,” George said. “We’ll be talking about Shailene Woodley 40 years from now. I’ve never seen anyone so young that has so much together.”

What do you think of Shailene Woodley as an actress?

Image via Wikimedia Commons