Shailene Woodley is at the Toronto Film Festival promoting Snowden, but prior to that she was one of several celebrities, including Susan Sarandon, who headlined a rally in DC in support of the activists at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation working to block the Dakota Access Pipeline. Shailene also spent part of August in North Dakota in solidarity with the protestors. The good news is that, after a defeat in court, the Obama administration ruled that the pipeline be halted until more research can be done into the environmental effects it will have on the region. So it’s a temporary victory for now.

Although Shailene, a former Bernie supporter, still won’t specific whom she’s voting for, it’s admirable that she’s working to support causes important to her. Shailene also cares quite a bit about the Divergent series, which she headlines as heroine Tris. In late July we heard that the final and fourth Divergent movie, Ascendant, would be going straight to television, which was news to Shailene at the time as she said no one at Lionsgate had consulted her prior to the story’s release. It sounded like a good idea considering that the third film was panned by critics and did respectively poorly at the box office, but they obviously hadn’t worked out the details yet.

In a new interview with Screenrant, Shailene said that she didn’t sign up for a television show and wasn’t interested in doing it. She expanded on that, to MTV, and said that she’s hoping that the final film will be made and that she will get the chance to reunited with her co-workers and finish telling Tris’s story properly.

To screenrant: I didn’t sign up for television
Last I heard they were trying to make it into a television show. I didn’t sign up to be in a television show. Out of respect to the studio and everyone involved, they may have changed their mind and may be doing something different, but I’m not necessarily interested in doing a television show.

To MTV: I still want to do another film
I hope they make a feature film! I want to finish these movies! I want to do justice to everybody who believes in the character of Tris as much as I believe in the character of Tris, as much as I believe in the stories that Veronica Roth offered us. I didn’t just do Divergent for the hell of it; I did Divergent because I think it parallels our modern day society in its own escapist, dystopian-esque way.

On if there are parallels between Tris’s story and her own activism
There’s many parallels. You see this young woman who isn’t inherently a hero; She still isn’t a hero, she’s someone who believes in humanity, and she’s going to do everything she can to protect humanity. These are films that we need to be offering people right now. People need to have something they can relate to that’s just far enough away where it triggers and inspires them maybe in their own personal lives, but also allows them to escape into an alternate reality. I hope we can make another feature film. I’m eternally optimistic! I want to do another movie with all my friends! I want to see the crew again. I want to finish it up.”

[From Screenrant and MTV]

Before anyone says that Shailene is sounding ungrateful or like she’s too good for television – remember Lionsgate released this story about Divergent’s potential move to television before telling Shailene about it and right before she was set to do press at Comic-Con. So it seemed like they didn’t necessarily want her involved and that she’s well within her rights to say that she didn’t sign up for that. She’s surely hoping that the studio gets this message and makes another film, but they’re looking at the bottom line. Maybe crossing out Shailene’s salary is part of that.

In the TIFF photos Shailene is wearing Jason Wu for the press conference, that’s the leather skirt with the little cap sleeve sweater. It’s a little conservative for me but it’s a cute look for a press conference. The glamorous gown for the premiere is Elie Saab and I love the contemporary cut but am not thrilled about the sequin pattern. Her nose ring is so cute.

Photos credit: WENN and FameFlynet