No stranger to challenging roles Ms. Woodley has graced television screens for ages. She is probably best known for her staring role in The Secret Life of The American Teenager, a show about a teenage pregnancy and the effect it his has on a family, but she has also appeared in The OC, Without a Trace, The District, Everybody Loves Raymond, CSI: NY, Close to Home and Cold Case. 

With The Descendents, Woodley has graduated to the silver screen, and what a debut! She plays opposite probably the biggest star in Hollywood and very much holds her own. The film is directed by Alexander Payne, who picked up an Oscar for his critically acclaimed California wine comedy Sideways and also penned the wonderful About Schmidt.

Payne brings his quirky directorial style to bear on The Descendents, a film the handles difficult family issues in a sensitive and light-hearted way, retaining an ‘indy’ feel but with all the polish of big production practices. Shot on location on the exotic islands of Hawaii, Clooney plays Matt, a man in the grip of a mid-life crisis, who discovers that his wife, who is now in a coma, has been having an affair behind his back. He is a descendent of Hawaiian royalty and white missionaries and is on the verge of a major land deal, which will see him release the land, of which he is sole trustee, to big business for development.

The events and discoveries he makes lead him to reconnect with his estranged daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller) and reassess what he wants from life and where he is going. Woodley plays the role of difficult teenager with great aplomb and has already been marked out as one for the future with critical acclaim. Although Shailene Woodley has had an agent since she was five years old and has virtually grown up in show business she did profess to being slightly nervous before meeting the Hollywood heartthrob.

"The first time I met him was at the table read, and I wasn't nervous until he walked in, and then I started sweating," the actress, 20, said. Her insecurity didn't last long, though.

“Then he came up to me and he was, like, 'Welcome, sweetie,' and gave me a giant hug, and immediately the intimidation went out the window. He is such a genuinely humble, phenomenal human being.

“Yeah, and so it wasn't like I was working with quote-unquote 'George Clooney, superstar, two-time Sexiest Man Alive,' whatever. I was working with a man from Kentucky with a heart of gold."

Shailene Woodley wears Dolce&Gabbana 

Ms. Woodley took to the red carpet looking very elegant indeed in a strapless tea-length Dolce&Gabbana dress (SS 2012) in black with a floral print. The premier of her motion picture debut also happened to be her 20th birthday and what a way to celebrate, the American Teenager is all grown up and, in Dolce&Gabbana, she looks the part.

by Hugo Mc Cafferty