I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That's a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget. You have a pre-conceived notion of what you want the scene to be, but once you get there, that goes out the window and it turns out to be a way that you never imagined.

So often, I read scripts and am like, 'This would never happen in real life. It's not trying to be funny. It's trying to be serious.'

Everyone today is like, 'Shailene, you're getting so much buzz. How does the feel?' It's the most odd question because it's like asking a kid who got into Cornell how it feels to be the top of your class at one of the Ivy League schools. How do you answer that? You just go, 'I don't know.'

The day the process of acting becomes something that I dread is the end. Obviously, why would you do something that you hate? I won’t do that.

The reason I keep acting is that it fuels some kind of passion in me, but the day that those butterflies stop, is the day that I’m gonna quit because I could care less about the magazines or being famous or the money or the awards.

I think there is a point in every teenager’s life where they are forced to come into themselves.

Alcohol is a big part of high school. I went through my little phase. I don’t know one high schooler that doesn’t.

So many times, you get a script and it says, “And then, the character cries,” and you read the lines and think, “That would never make me cry. Those lines are so untruthful.” My approach is just to be honest to the situation.

Nothing really attracts me to the film industry, to be perfectly honest. I look at acting as an art, and that’s all it is for me. It’s just fun.

I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That’s a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget.