Thursday 1 August 2013

NEW Divergent Movie Still Features Tris & Caleb at Choosing Ceremony + On Set Report


We have another new Divergent still! It shows Beatrice “Tris” (Shailene Woodley) and her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) at the Choosing Ceremony. This is actually our first official look at Caleb.
They are both wearing Abnegation grey clothing, waiting to be called up and make the choice that will change their lives forever.

Read the description of the scene from USA Today + the on-set report, in which they talk to Shailene Woodley, Neil Burger & Veronica Roth:


CHICAGO — The sacred Choosing Ceremony Day has arrived on the set of Divergent.
One by one, the candidates step onto the marble altar in front of hundreds of citizens, standing before five ceramic bowls to make their fateful decision: Which of the five social factions will they join in the socially stratified world of this dystopian future?

The heroine of Divergent, Tris (Shailene Woodley), steps cautiously onto the altar, stopping before the ceremonial bowls representing Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent) and Dauntless (the brave).

She pauses for 15 seconds, deep in thought, before finally drawing a knife over her palm above her chosen bowl.

"Dauntless," a voice cries out.

The Dauntless faction in the auditorium lets out a berserk cheer in the way that only the chosen protectors of a society can. But Tris still seems distracted as she makes her way over to her new family and sits quietly in the front row.

It is, after all, a life-changing decision and a blood bond with her new faction, which requires Tris to leave her parents, who look crestfallen in the Abnegation section.

"There's a lot going through Tris' head. This is a definitive decision," Woodley says afterward. "She doesn't think her home is ever going to be reopened after this. So she's understandably extremely emotional."

But the scene, shot in Chicago's modern Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist in front of hundreds of extras, has an even deeper meaning for Woodley, 21. Taking the role of Tris in the potential blockbuster franchise — Divergent is the first of three books from Veronica Roth and is on a pace to sell 4 million copies — was a step Woodley insists was taken with a great deal of care.
Like Tris, she knew there was no going back, even if no blood oath was involved. She knew life would never be the same in a way that a rare few — Jennifer Lawrence and Kristen Stewart — can know.

Taking an on-set break on a steamy July afternoon (with the church's air-conditioning system in disrepair), still wearing her Abnegation garb, Woodley recalls the thought process of joining Divergent (out March 21).

"It was a huge decision," she says. "At first, I was not planning to take this opportunity, because it felt overwhelming. If there is success and if it happens in a way that was anything similar to Hunger Games or Twilight, that's extremely intimidating. Especially for a very homely nature chick like me.''

As director Neil Burger notes, "This movie has a massive audience and machine behind it. It exposes her to a different situation for her life. It's a different thing from the independent movies that she's been doing, which are really great. "

Woodley had already filmed the high school love story The Spectacular Now with Miles Teller (opening in select cities Friday) and made a name for herself as George Clooney's daughter in 2011's The Descendants. The latter role captured Burger's imagination for Tris.

"She was this rebel where she had this cockiness, yet underneath, she was vulnerable and capable of all sorts of hurt," he says. "I loved that quality about her."
He offered her what many actresses would consider the role of a lifetime. But Woodley says she was still thinking about saying no until her mother convinced her that she would be "crazy not take this on."

"My mother said, 'You've never declined a part because of what could happen. You've never not done something from a place of fear,' " Woodley says. " 'You cannot say, this is a big-budget film, so I don't want to do it. You have to decide if you are passionate about it.' "

Woodley chose the Divergent bowl. She instantly infused her own California 2013 version of hippie vibe into a project that had a family atmosphere and was overseen by husband-and-wife producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher.

The producers watch the Choosing Day scene on monitors in what's called the "editor's suite" but is really a spare conference room in the church with effective air conditioning. In between takes, they coo over a cellphone video taken the day before featuring Woodley, Ansel Elgort (who plays Tris' brother Caleb) and Scandal star Tony Goldwyn (her on-screen father). The trio had made a goofy video send-off to the producers' daughter Tessa, who had spent time on set.

Wick proudly shows the video to Roth, 24, an unassuming spectator sitting in a director's chair next to her husband, Nelson Fitch. The author, who wrote the novel while she was a Chicago college student, is a frequent set visitor who insists she's just along for the ride and not imposing her will.
"I haven't had to get all authorly at all. I just let them do their jobs, which they do well," she says. "It's been a shockingly positive experience all around."

During a break, the suite becomes even more family-like as Ashley Judd (who plays Tris' mother) enters with her two cockapoo dogs, Buttermilk and Shug. Judd grabs a seat at a conference table next to a visibly pregnant Kate Winslet, who plays the villain Jeanine Matthews. The two gossip as they sign copies of Divergent.

There's not quite as much time to relax for Woodley, who had to learn a boxing-inspired futuristic fighting style and incorporate the hammer-fists into tightly choreographed scenes.

"I haven't hit anyone, and no one has hit me,'' she says. "But there have been some frightful moments where I'm like, 'If I don't have my (stuff) together, I could get nailed right now.' "

She climbed a portion of the Navy Pier Ferris wheel in one scene and stood on the edge of a six-story building in another. "It was fun. I got to lean over a bit. I was connected to wires, of course. I wanted to make the jump," says Woodley, who adds that a stunt double made the actual leap.

Woodley has been a constant presence on the set, appearing in nearly every scene during a shoot spanning a frigid Chicago April to this insufferably hot July.

"I have no idea what day we're on," Woodley says, attempting to smile. "Sixty-seven? Sixty-two? Sixty-something."

She keeps it fun by hanging out with her co-stars, who share a block of apartments. The musically inclined crew even jams together. "It's kind of like a frat house," Woodley says. "To have everyone thrown into a room where everyone gets along and everyone is excited about hanging out with each other is not an everyday occasion."

As she talks, Elgort sits next to her, comfortably lost in his own world while typing on his iPhone. The two will move from screen siblings in Divergent to lovers in their next film, the indie romance The Fault in Our Stars (no release date yet). Woodley says it will be an easy transition.

"Ansel is my brother for life," she says, as is her Spectacular co-star Teller, who also appears in Divergent. Woodley insisted by text that Teller take the part as a fellow Dauntless member. "The guys I like, I keep around," she says with a laugh.

In a way, it's all part of the normalcy she wants to maintain, no matter what kind of success she might find with Divergent.

"I'm so extremely lucky to have this all," Woodley says. "But I also have a whole separate life outside of this that I am just as fully passionate about. My life hasn't truly changed at all, and I really don't anticipate it changing."

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