Shailene Woodley on Why Hollywood Is “Pretty Circular” When It Comes to Fashion Sustainability

Shailene Woodley revealed how Hollywood “is pretty circular” when it comes to sustainable style, and how her newest daily routine is helping her adopt a more eco-conscious lifestyle.

“I spent six months in one place this year, which is the first time I’ve done that since I was 17,” the 32-year-old star told The Hollywood Reporter at Uber’s Go-Get Zero event on Oct. 8 in London. “So that was a big deal for me and I picked up a lot of habits. Just having a daily routine, it turns out, is so sustainable. I find for myself, when I am in one place for a long period of time, I tend to eat the same thing every day. I tend to be able to meal plan easier. I do most of my own cooking. And so there’s ways to participate in the local economy and the local infrastructure. For me, that looks like farmer’s markets and finding a green dry cleaner and asking specifically, ‘Please do not put plastic on my clothes and I don’t want the wire hanger, I’m bringing hangers for you.’ So those were ways that this year was different than previous years.”

At the rideshare app’s conference, Woodley sat down with Uber spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker to talk about her environmental activism (“I’m by no means perfect”), how attitudes in Hollywood have shifted towards being more green (“for many years in Hollywood I was called a ‘tree-hugging hippie; there’s worse things to be called”) and her own shopping habits.

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“Everything, apart from the socks I’m wearing, is secondhand,” said Woodley, who paired an animal-print blouse with black trousers and boots at the event. “Most of my clothes are secondhand, and there’s wonderful companies now like The RealReal where you can find incredible pieces and then also sell them back. And it creates this really fun system to interact with. A lot of people don’t know that in Hollywood, when we look really pretty on these red carpets, we give everything back. At the end of the day, you don’t keep any of it. It’s all just for show and tell, basically. You get [pieces] and you’re like, ‘Whose deodorant is this? That’s not mine.’ So in that aspect, I actually think Hollywood is pretty circular.”

She continued, “But fashion in general is a massive issue. It’s a massive issue when it comes to the environment, when it comes to labor workers; all of it is so complex. And for me, the greatest way that I can kind of be aware and change my daily habits is to be more invested in secondhand. And as consumers drive the market, secondhand options are becoming more available, far more easy than they used to be. You can find really high-end luxury things if that is what you’re into. You can find thrift stores or you can find these high-end luxury vintage stores.”

The Three Women star also sang the praises of Uber for its new founding partnership with Prince William’s The Earthshot Prize, an initiative to fund climate innovators such as Enso Tyre (a line of tires designed to reduce pollution and extend the range of electric vehicles) and Notpla, a seaweed-based compostable packaging company whose plastic-free take-out boxes are available at a discount for restaurants on the UberEats platform. The move is part of Uber’s Paris Innovation Pilot, which brings a $1 million investment for businesses in the City of Lights to adopt more sustainable packaging (such as Releaf bags and iamplasticfree drinking straws).

“First of all, I’m not perfect. I got very juiced when you guys talked about the sustainability efforts as it pertains to UberEats and packaging, because that’s massive. Half my life is on a film set. When I don’t have a kitchen that I can cook in, I’m UberEating to work,” added Woodley. “I’m constantly around the world and I’m on planes all the time. I am eating food out of plastic. There are plastic water bottles. I’m by no means perfect. And I think the message that I always try to get across is it’s not about being perfect.”

The actress recently reteamed with Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley on his Hope in the Water documentary series released earlier this year on PBS. Recalling past trips with Greenpeace years ago when she saw first-hand the “chilling” amount of microplastics in the ocean (“It was the first time that I actually was like, ‘Oh, maybe there is no hope’”), Woodley says participating in the PBS show helped reel her optimism back in.

“That was very inspiring to me. It talks about how it elevates and encourages local economies by connecting certain people with their communities or with bigger cities or with their governments and with how food and our interaction with it specific to the ocean can be something that not only sustains an economy, but also sustains the ecology of a community,” she added.

Asked about her 2016 arrest along with 26 others during the Dakota Access pipeline protests and whether she’d do it again, Woodley responded, “in a heartbeat.” She reflected on how doing “the whole name-drop thing” didn’t help the movement: “I was on the phone with CNN, Fox News and MSNBC saying, ‘Can you guys please come and cover this? Just interview these children, hear what they’re saying.’ And no one showed up.” (The 1,172-mile underground crude oil pipeline was completed in May 2017 by Energy Transfer Partners and runs through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois.)

This is why I felt so moved by [Uber’s] presentation because for so long I feel like we’ve been asking for solutions and we’ve been asking for people to care. It just wasn’t on a mainstream level of consciousness or awareness yet to want to participate. That was a massive turning point because a movement that started with a group of 25 people, mostly youth, ended up being tens of thousands of people from around the world who came to an Indigenous community in North America to stand with the community there. And as much as it was about the pipeline, you can’t really talk about climate without talking about all of the intersectionality that comes with it. And a lot of it happens to communities that aren’t very loud when it comes to mainstream media and don’t have a lot of platforms to speak on. That was a historical moment in recognizing that more people exist in this conversation than just those of us in this room.”

Woodley also shared how she’s no longer frustrated about the glacial pace of sustainable changes in the industry and society as a whole.

“People don’t like to be told what to do, but people do like to be inspired. For many years in Hollywood I was called the ‘tree-hugging hippie.’ I was like, well, there’s worse things to be called,” she explained during the Uber event. “Now it is really exciting to see all of these people who once pigeonholed me into this category of hippie, suddenly making lifestyle changes on their own or being ambassadors to organizations on their own. … I had so much anger for so long that we weren’t moving as quickly as I thought we should be moving, and that no one seemed to be listening. There’s something really beautiful about the slow patience that comes with being aware, making choices in our personal lives, encouraging corporations to do the same and then watching those ripple effects.”

Woodley is next slated to star in and produce a biopic of Janis Joplin. Offscreen, she’ll make her Broadway debut in The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland’s Cult of Love play alongside Zachary Quinto and Barbie Ferreira.