Shailene Woodley On Jennifer Lawrence Comparisons, They ‘Always Lead To Despair’

It is almost inevitable not to compare Shailene Woodley and Jennifer Lawrence, but the Divergent star is not keen on the side by side and recently said comparisons “always lead to despair.”

The blunt-spoken Woodley doesn’t mince words and the audience at a taping of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon booed her when she spoke her mind.

One thing Shailene Woodley and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) have in common is that they both play strong female leads in a trilogy, based on popular novels, which propelled their careers into Hollywood stardom. They also have strong points of view and are not afraid to say what they think.

During the press junket for Divergent, Shailene had many raising eyebrows at some of her answers, but she was just being brutally honest. Nothing wrong with that.

In an interview with New York Magazine Woodley opens up about comparisons in general and the Jennifer Lawrence comparison in particular:

“As women, we are constantly told that we need to compare ourselves to a girl in school, to our co-­workers, to the images in a magazine. How is the world going to advance if we’re always comparing ourselves to others? I admire Jennifer Lawrence, but she’s everyone’s favorite person to compare me to. Is it because we both have short hair and a vagina? I see us as separate individuals. And that’s important. As women, our insecurities are based on all these comparisons. And that creates distress.”

Speaking of the audience reaction during The Tonight Show, Shailene said:

“It bothered me, because it’s human nature to feel bad if you are booed by an entire audience. But in these few moments that we have here on Earth, are we going to torture ourselves? Or are we going to allow our lights to be dimmed? How do we expect men to respect women or women to rise to more power when we don’t respect our queendom in the same way that men respect their kingdom?”

But all this doesn’t mean that Shailene Woodley doesn’t like Jennifer Lawrence; the 22-year-old reached out to the Oscar winner for advice, before the madness that came from being cast in Divergent took the showbiz world by storm.

“I asked her advice. I do think we have things in common. We both believe in having fun and still telling the truth. We’re not fashion girls, but we play the game. And we both care deeply about being actors.”

Shailene Woodley and Jennifer Lawrence are two of Hollywood’s darlings and we are surely going to see a lot of them in the coming years. Woodley can be seen in The Fault In Our Stars next.

[Images via Summit Entertainment, Lionsgate]