'The Fault in Our Stars': A Q&A with Shailene Woodley & Ansel Elgort

Ansel Elgort and Shailene Woodley star in The Fault in Our Stars. Photo: Supplied

Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Gus (Ansel Elgort) share a sarcastic sense of humour, a distaste for the conventional, and ultimately a love that sweeps them on an unforgettable journey in The Fault in Our Stars.

Shailene and Ansel sat down with FAMOUS to chat about their characters in the movie adaptation of John Green's best-selling novel.

There is a lightness to your character, was that difficult to act given you were playing someone so unwell.
AE: The way that the book was written gives the characters that lightness. And then once we spent time with kids who actually were sick or had been through it, we realized that same lightness was present in them. And that therefore it was totally correct to communicate that through our characters.

Without the lightness it would be a bad movie. It’d be unrealistic and it’d be depressing.

I think it’s all about the fact that they’re real human beings who just happen to have something. The cancer in the story’s just the variable that makes the clock tick. And that makes the love even more important because it’s the last that they’ll have.

Did it make it easier or harder that you’d worked together before?
SW: It definitely made things easier. I mean, we already knew each other; we were already comfortable around each other. And we already loved each other and had a deep sense of admiration for the other. Which I think translated into our performances.

Did you improvise on the relationship on set?
AE: Well, a lot of the scenes are word-for-word from the book.

So many movies just have two pretty people, thrown together. But I love that this story really takes its time and incorporates those scenes from the book. It’s almost like a play. Because it’s so focused on the relationship and that’s so important.

The Fault in Our Stars is out on Blu-ray™ and DVD.