Shailene Woodley, best-known for her roles in the Divergent series and Big Little Lies, got very candid about her arrest in October 2016 in the new issue of Marie Claire UK.
Woodley was protesting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline at the time.
She got arrested for criminal trespassing and engaging in a riot, all of which was documented on Facebook Live. However, what followed was not.
“I was strip-searched,” she revealed in the interview. “Like get naked, turn over, spread your butt cheeks, bend over. They were looking for drugs in my ass.”
She also talked about the psychological effects the experience had on her. “When you’re in a jail cell and they shut that door, you realize no one can save you,” she said. “If there’s a fire and they decide not to open the door, you’ll die. You are a caged animal.”
Woodley turned off her phone for three months this year due to PTSD symptoms she and her friends had after the Standing Rock protests. “There was so much trauma,” she said. “Mine was like, ‘What do I do now?’ Kind of like a little bit of depression.”
While she is now on a year’s probation, Woodley insists that she’s not giving up on her fight for environment rights. “This world isn't something to take for granted. The only way to address climate change and these radical, detrimental policies is for us, as citizens, to shift our lifestyles,” she argues.
“People are too comfortable. We're complacent in many ways. We need to be willing to get uncomfortable.”
