Subscribe
In support of the January 4th return of “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”, I was invited on a conference call with Shailene Woodley, who plays Amy Juergens on the show. I posted Part 1 yesterday, so here’s Part 2. Enjoy!
Q: The Secret Life requires a lot of traumatic acting, I was wondering what do you and the cast do for fun especially on the tough days of filming?
Shailene: When all the cast works we bring guitars and – a lot of the guys play – and we’ll all kind of like sit around and make up stupid songs about each other, or someone will bring their computer and we’ll go on YouTube for hours and just laugh hysterically.
We all get along really well. It’s a very comfortable set. It’s really neat to be able to have a physical scene and then afterwards go out and be comfortable around the person enough to share your own personal stories and stuff. So it’s kind of like high school all over again without the drama.
Q: How is it working with the cutie that plays your son?
Shailene: There’s two of them. They’re great. They’re one and a half year old boys, so they have their moments, but most of the time they’re just complete angels. It’s so cute. I’ll always go in there every time we film together, about an hour before we actually start filming just to bond with them, and so they can get comfortable around me, and their smiles, they’re just like normal little kids. And it’s such an interesting dynamic to watch a one year old be put in a room with cameras and lights and microphones and people everywhere and watch them stay quiet and stay professional I guess you could say. It’s really interesting to me how a baby could do that.
Q: How are you this afternoon or should I say this morning wherever you are?
Shailene: It is afternoon for me, I’m in New York.
Q: My question for you is the cast really has great chemistry on screen, but not only that, they have great chemistry off screen as well. How does the cast continue to kind of foster and build that chemistry so that it does translate on the screen?
Shailene: When the show first started we all kind of just got put there together. It’s not like any of us got to choose who we got to work with or who we were going to spend the rest like two years of our lives and hopefully more with … So everyone bonded immediately, it was kind of that thing where we didn’t really have a choice, so we bonded, and it’s been great. A lot of us are very different people, but there’s never conflicts; sometimes there’s differences in opinions, but we’re all so down to earth about and we all just accept each other as who we are and we learn from each other.
Some of us are into more alternative music per se and then others are more into the whole hip-hop rap scene and that’s very basic, but instead of arguing about differences, we kind of engage each other in the differences and we get to learn amazing things. I’m not a dancer, but Francia Raisa is the most amazing dancer I’ve ever seen. So she has been able to kind of help me with that kind of whole aspect of life and I’ve been able to help her with more like crafty kind of that whole kind of life. I don’t know, it’s kind of difficult to explain, but we’re all very open with each and we never judge each other.
Q: We had a chance to interview Allen before and he mentioned that you guys have a lot of pranks that happen on the show as well. So I think that kind of camaraderie also would add into that as well for the chemistry.
Shailene: Absolutely.
Q: The show has like pages on twitter and facebook and MySpace and other social networking sites. Why do you think it’s important for the show to be a part of these social networks and communities?
Shailene: The world today is so technologically based, like there’s never talking anymore. I feel it’s important, because, if that’s what kids are doing with their time, if that’s what people are spending most of their time in the day doing, then that’s the way that we’re able to kind of engage people. I don’t really know how to explain it, but if you know that that’s what the public is doing then that’s what we’ll cater to.
Q: ABC Family has this wonderful network of shows that have such incredible casts and incredible story lines, are you friendly with a lot of the other cast members from some of the other shows like Make It or Break It or Greek?
Shailene: Honestly, I haven’t met many of them that many times, but in the couple times that we did, of course everyone is so friendly and so open to each other. And it’s cool every time we see someone from Ten Things I Hate About You, I’ll go up to them and we’ll be talking, to like Megan for instance, and they’ll just say, "My other part of my family." We always joke around with the whole new kind of family thing, ABC Family. It’s really cool. Even though we’re not close and we hardly know each other, we’re very open with each other.
Q: What would you like to see from your character, from Amy going forward?
Shailene: Obviously I’d like to see her grow up a little bit.
She’s kind of been on the border the last couple of episodes over the last season of making a change; and definitely in the newer season it definitely explores Amy’s choice to grow up and to mature in a very optimistic positive way versus living in her pessimistic past. I like it when she gets to smile and I think it’s really cool to be able to explore a teenage girls point of view on life. I was there, it’s a very hard process to go through as a child, and so I just can’t wait to be able to portray that growing up in Amy.
Check back for Part 3!
Image Credit: INF