Shailene Woodley on Annie’s Death, Baby’s Future

[This story contains major spoilers from the fourth episode of season two of Paradise, “A Holy Charge.”]

Any savvy viewer could have guessed that Annie would play an important part in the world of Paradise after the Dan Fogelman-created series centered its entire first episode of season two on her introduction.

The former medical student, who became a Graceland tour guide after the death of her mother survived the show’s near-apocalypse for years at Elvis Presley’s famous home, only to recently cross paths with another survivor named Link (Thomas Doherty), who she spent one beautiful night with that ended up getting her pregnant. Annie, however, had refused to leave Graceland with Link and his group, and is nearing her due date when Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) shows up wounded after leaving the bunker at the end of season one in search for the wife he mistakenly thought had died, Terri (Enuka Okuma).

In the newly released fourth episode (the first three episodes released together, before season two moved to a weekly release), Annie, who is played by Shailene Woodley, wants Xavier to bring her to the bunker so she can reunite with Link. But fate has other plans when Annie goes into labor and dies after child birth. Her last wish is to charge Xavier with keeping her baby safe, and to bring her to her father Link, who she hopes made it to the bunker.

“It was the quickest turnaround I’ve ever been a part of,” Woodley tells The Hollywood Reporter of her season two casting, and having one week of prep before filming. She likens filming her emotional episodes to being in a short film, since the majority of her scenes are spent quietly at Graceland, especially with scene partners Doherty and star Brown. “We were able to create this reality that I think is a very rare reality to see on television, that just gave silence permission,” she says.

That all changes, however, with Annie’s death in episode four. Below, Woodley unpacks the emotional episode as she talks about her attraction to telling Annie’s Paradise story. She also teases her upcoming Janis Joplin biopic and shares what she knows about Big Little Lies season three, but she remains largely in the dark about where Paradise goes after her exit: However, “Dan did tell me the extension of [the Link] storyline and where the baby goes,” she says.

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Can you tell me your casting story? I’m wondering if Dan Fogelman had you in mind for this role of Annie?

I don’t think so. I don’t know. Dan did reach out. We Zoomed with one another, and I was a fan. I have been a fan of his for so long, and Sterling’s as well — and Julianne [Nicholson]’s and Paradise season one. I didn’t know exactly what Dan had in mind for my character. I knew there were a certain amount of episodes, and I knew a brief landscape. After our Zoom once he laid out the idea of Annie and who she was, I said I would be honored to be a part of this. And he was like, “Great, see you in L.A. In seven days, we start rolling.”

I was in Europe at the time and I was flying back to the States to start prepping, and I was reading the episodes on the plane. There was no time to prepare, which I think actually lent to a lot of the intuitive process, specifically with episode one. But it was the quickest turnaround I’ve ever been a part of.

I’ve seen you speak about how intentional you are with choosing your characters. Annie is another strong woman who is a survivor. What clicked or attracted you to playing her from the start?

The first time I read the episode, I was so struck by the space that existed in it. There was so much silence, because she does spend so much of the episode alone. I always get excited to play with the texture of space and solitude, because that’s where I think we become the most ourselves, and where we’re also the most challenged because we’re stuck in our heads.

Although Dan and his writers had created such a brilliant character, I didn’t know what Annie’s in was and what my point of relation was [in the show]. I thought we were very different, and by the end, I realized we had a lot of similarities. But I think the adventure of going into something quite blind and not having all of the answers allowed — I used the word “intuitive” earlier, but it just felt so intuitive from the moment we started filming.

It was just me and our directors in episode one, Glenn [Ficarra] and John [Requa], for the first two weeks of filming. Thomas hadn’t come yet, Sterling wasn’t there yet. It felt like we were making this contained short film. I believe the first episode came in at over two hours long for the director’s cut. Obviously they had to condense it, but we had so much footage of Annie just interacting with her environment and herself, looking at her own hands, talking to herself and interacting with Elvis. That isn’t in the final cut, but it did inform a lot of, “How does someone spend years alone without going insane?” That was the question I woke up with every day and went home with every day: “How does one contain their sanity?”

And for me, a lot of the answers revealed themselves to be through play and wonder and silliness. Annie, knowing that she was safe within the confines of her mind, I think, really challenged her ability to feel safe once Thomas’ character Link shows up, and once Sterling shows up. We were able to create this reality that I think is a very rare reality to see on television, that just gave silence permission.

So you did not know her full arc in detail. Did you know how many episodes you were going to be in, and that she would die?

I knew how many episodes and I knew what was going to happen [in broad strokes] — I knew that she was going to get pregnant. I knew that she was going to give birth, and I knew that she was going to pass away. But I didn’t know exactly how that was going to look, and what the timeline was going to be, until I read episode four. It’s so profoundly and poignantly written, that reading it in and of itself evoked every emotion that we needed to bring it alive on the day. I credit the writers who are so brilliant and so in touch with their own humanity, which made our jobs a lot more seamless.

Given your environmental activism and attraction to the show’s first season, did you have moments talking with your co-stars or the writers where you shared your fears for the planet or what this role was bringing up for you?

There really was no time. I got cast, I did wardrobe fitting. We had a couple conversations with hair and makeup. I got a haircut, and the cameras were rolling. And then, as we were shooting, there were so many montage sequences and so many small beats to capture that there wasn’t a lot of downtime on this set. A lot of the conversations that we had kind of had nothing to do with the show. Also, I still don’t know exactly what happens at the end of this season because I haven’t asked. I have a rough idea, and I know more than I even want to know, as a fan of the show. But I wasn’t trying to go deep with Dan or the writers on what was to come. I am excited to have it be revealed in real time with my friends on the couch watching Paradise, because once Annie’s out of it, I don’t really know what happens.

So what you know about Link is where you left him?

I know more about Link than I know about Xavier or Sinatra [Nicholson]. Only because of the nature of our relationship in the show and the baby, Dan did tell me the extension of that storyline and where the baby goes. But I had purposely not asked a lot of questions.

What do you think held Annie back from going with Link that day when she stayed in the closet?

I think that when Annie lost her mom, she was so accustomed to feeling out of control in her life, that she couldn’t help her mom. And as a caretaker, going to med school and not being able to fulfill her dreams and help others, she had a lack of control that caused suffering for those around her. That was the story she’d created in her head. And suddenly, at Graceland, once the disaster hit, in her days of survival, she had control that she had never experienced before, which was that she knew how to contain her environment. She knew how to keep herself safe. It was after [her friend] Gail passed away, that her control, I think, really set in, and the comfort set in.

When Link showed up, he was a reminder of all that she had already lost. The idea of leaving Graceland, being out of control again in her life, and possibly losing him, or losing the security net and the safety and comfort she found in him was scarier than potentially dying alone at Graceland by herself, because at least that was something she chose. Annie’s greatest fear is something being taken away from her that she had no control of and no agency over. So the idea for her to let Link go was an idea of autonomous agency. Even if it was a false story that she had fabricated, it kept her safe.

And ultimately, the reason why she did end up leaving is because she realized that the unknown is actually where the most growth and the most comfort can lie. But it took a tremendous amount of courage for her to arrive there, and I think getting pregnant was the catalyst for her to put herself in a place of discomfort in order to gain comfort — even if it was something that she had to believe before seeing.

She has this moment of acceptance in her death, where she’s almost walking Xavier through it after she gives birth and is bleeding out. Everyone in the room is in denial, but she knows it’s happening and seems OK. How did you play that moment; how much did becoming a mother change her?

There wasn’t a lot of time for her to be intellectual about it. I think that a lot of her experience in her final moments, she had been preparing for. Because she was medically trained, she knew what the consequences of giving birth could be. But seeing her daughter, looking her in the eyes, holding her young body, and seeing that she was healthy and that she was going to have the fortitude to move forward in life in a way that Annie didn’t, I think, gave her a peace and an acceptance that’s so primal and deeply rooted. I don’t have children yet, but I would imagine it’s deeply rooted in the womb of a woman, this idea of carrying life forward and giving life forward. I think Annie was able to leave with a sense of peace, and because her nature is to be a nurturer, she left on a high note because she was able to be of service to those around her even as her last breath was being taken.

It’s rare to have one episode with two characters and totally fall in love with them, like with Annie and Link, and then even with Annie and Xavier. Did you have time to prep with Thomas or Sterling?

We were thrown right in! Thomas and I had met once. We spent maybe 15, 20 minutes together before we did our first scene. The first thing we filmed was the one where we come together and touch one another’s hands for the first time, and we have this very intimate moment. We didn’t really talk about it. I think I went up to him and said, “Are you cool if we just play?” And he was like, “Yeah, are you cool?” And I was like, “Yeah, let’s just see what happens.”

The directors gave us the space to explore the nuanced moments and the silence that existed in that scene, because it wasn’t written with a lot of silence, but we really took our time. We trusted each other. We kind of intrinsically decided to share. I shared all of myself with Thomas in those moments, and I felt like he shared all of himself with me, and we really imagined and allowed ourselves to believe that was the first time we were having human contact and physical contact in a very, very long time. And the fear that can come with being truly seen, I think, sometimes is greater than the fear of being alone, even if it means loneliness. We really leaned into it.

And with Sterling, it was the same thing. Right off the bat with Thomas and with Sterling, we all naturally had a chemistry. We were having deeply personal conversations and sharing ideas about the world offscreen, which then allowed us to be, I think, more comfortable in silence with each other onscreen.

Next for you, you have two big projects, including the Janis Joplin biopic. How are you approaching that and where are you in development?

I don’t think I’m allowed to say that part of it, but I’m very excited about it! The prep has been a lot of musical prep, which has been wonderful and so fulfilling, and exciting and nerve-wracking. But I’m such a fan of hers because of the way that she approached the world. She had this audacity to be so clearly herself with the mask of who she wanted others to believe she was that it’s been really fun to learn more and more about her. The more I read about her, and the more time I spend with her, either musically or by way of hearing stories that other people have to share about her, the more enthralled I am.

And then there’s Big Little Lies season three.

If I knew anything, I would spill every bean, but I literally know nothing! That is not me pretending. I know nothing — apart from that we are doing a third season. For all I know, Jane could live in Australia. I have no idea what’s to come!

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Paradise releases new episodes Mondays on Hulu, and is now streaming the first four episodes of season two.