Shailene Woodley’s Paradise character Annie way have memorized every nook and cranny of Elvis Presley’s Memphis estate Graceland, but the actress herself hasn’t made the pilgrimage there in the wake of her affecting performance in the show’s second season.
“I still have yet to be to go to the actual Graceland because I feel like I know it so intimately that going there might ruin the whole thing,” Woodley admitted during Deadline’s Contenders TV panel spotlighting the Hulu series. “Our design team replicated Graceland square inch by square inch. It was remarkable.”
Woodley recounted her experience being recruited into Dan Fogelman’s enigmatic post-apocalyptic series. “I Zoomed with Dan and I was on a plane, I think, two or three days later, and we were filming within eight or nine days,” she recalled. “So it was a very quick sort of turnaround. There wasn’t a lot of time for preparation or a lot of time to think, which I think actually just allowed for a lot of intuition and instinct to drive Annie and to drive the connections that Annie had.”
The actress recalled her first scene opposite love interest and fellow Contenders panelist Thomas Doherty, playing the revolutionary leader Link, “a very intimate moment with one another. And Thomas and I didn’t really know each other at all at that point, but because of the set that Dan creates and Sterling creates, everybody is so kind and comfortable. And it really just allows. … They gave us space to breathe and to exist, and that’s so rare.”
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She also described the onscreen chemistry she developed with series star Sterling K, Brown. “What I love about the dynamic between Xavier and Annie is it’s like it’s a love story but without intimacy,” she explained. “And I think that’s a very rare thing to see, especially between males and females onscreen. And we really got to kind of lean into what does love mean if we’re taking out the labels and the roles that we usually identify love to be or have to be.”
On set, Brown “is the ultimate leader and the ultimate cheerleader,” Woodley said. “And he walks onto a set, and everyone has a smile on their face because he takes the time to look people in the eyes. And to come into the second season of a very successful show, he immediately sort of makes everyone feel at home and welcome. And he’s remarkable.”
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She added: “I feel this is one of the highlights of my career – I feel so lucky to be a part of this show. The writing is so extraordinary. Dan and his writers, it’s some of the best writing that I’ve ever been able to kind of breathe life into. And so our job is really to just kind of submit to what’s on the page and be present.”
Looking ahead to the series’ third and final season, the cast remained tight-lipped in lieu of spilling the surprise twists Paradise is known for, Julianne Nicholson, whose Machiavellian billionaire Sinatra presumably met her final fate in the Season 2 finale, said over Zoom that a return wasn’t entirely off the table. “I mean, anything’s possible in a Dan Fogelman world. I’ll say that, but I am sitting in my home in the south of England right now, so we’ll see.”
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Doherty added: “It’s going to be bigger. I didn’t actually know that it was capable to make it bigger, but it’s going to be bigger.”
Enuka Okuma, who plays Xavier’s now-reunited wife Teri, also was on the panel and noted: “We can rest assured that it’ll not be what you expect because that’s what Dan does, right? It’ll be bigger and larger and nothing that you know is coming is coming.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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