Shailene Woodley says she still has not visited Graceland after playing Annie in Paradise, even though the show recreated Elvis Presley’s home so closely that she felt she already knew it. “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 said during Deadline’s Contenders TV panel. “Our design team replicated Graceland square inch by square inch. It was remarkable.”
Woodley said the role came together at a breakneck pace. She said she Zoomed with Dan Fogelman and was on a plane two or three days later, with filming starting within eight or nine days. That speed, she said, left little room for overthinking and pushed her to rely on instinct in playing Annie during the second season of the Hulu series. “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,” she said.
The quick start mattered because Woodley’s first scene with Thomas Doherty was “a very intimate moment with one another,” and she said the two did not really know each other at the time. She credited the atmosphere on set, shaped by Fogelman and series star Sterling K. Brown, for making the work feel safe. “They gave us space to breathe and to exist, and that’s so rare,” she said, adding that Brown is “the ultimate leader and the ultimate cheerleader” who makes people feel at home by looking them in the eyes.
Paradise is moving toward its third and final season, and the cast was careful not to give away much about what comes next. Asked about a possible return, Julianne Nicholson said, “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.” Doherty was more direct: “It’s going to be bigger.” For Woodley, the larger point was simpler. She said Paradise is “one of the highlights of my career” and praised the writing as some of the best she has ever been able to bring to life.