If there’s one thing Shailene Woodley has accomplished it’s the ability to speak her mind, which I can certainly appreciate. She’s also managed to star in one of the worst young adult adaptations I’ve seen in Divergent while also managing to not only continue to impress me as an actress in such dreck, but also in her other features such as her breakout role in The Descendants as well as her work in The Spectacular Now and The Fault in Our Stars. Next she’s working opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Oliver Stone‘s Edward Snowden picture, simply titled Snowden and she had a few thing to say about the picture in which she plays Snowden’s girlfriend, Lindsay Mills.
Speaking with E!, Woodley was quick to praise the NSA whistleblower, “I define a hero as somebody, who against the judgment of other people, if they believe something will positively impact the world and they choose to do it and honor their integrity, that’s what I sort of consider a hero, no matter how big or small a feat they create, and in that light, absolutely I think that Edward Snowden is a hero.”
I’m sure such a statement will likely fire those that see Snowden more as a criminal than a hero and perhaps her next statement sort of proves he technically is a criminal, though she undoutedly would offer her own personal pardon for what he did:
“You are the epitome of the word selfless… You did something knowing you wouldn’t be able to come home, knowing that your country would have very mixed feelings and yet your integrity on what you believe was right or wrong or should be public knowledge was more important to you than almost your own comfortability and the life that you had lived for so long. So I would like to say thank you to him.”
Personally I think anyone that saw the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour would have a much softer opinion of Snowden if they originally felt he deserved to be treated as a criminal for what he did. While the film didn’t entirely blow me away, the one thing I did come away with was a sense he was doing what he was doing purely because he felt it was the right thing to do, nothing more.
As for my click-baiting headline, Woodley’s role as Lindsay Mills means she’s going to be playing someone who is a dancer, acrobat and graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art and when it comes to Mills’ pole dancing, well, here you go.
Buzzfeed has compiled a batch of pictures of Mills and some additional information, all of which Woodley is clearly taking into consideration for the picture as she also admits she has not yet had a chance to speak to either Snowden or Mills, though it has been confirmed Stone met with Snowden in Moscow while doing research for the movie.
