The Descendants ascends

So often we find it's the more self-absorbed of the human race who have absolutely no trouble whatsoever talking about themselves. I'm thinking a Hollywood heart-throb. An up-and-coming beautiful young actress. An Oscar-winning director who's worked on films including Jurassic Park, Sideways and About Schmidt. He's a super human. He's so generous and grateful. And not for the material things he has but for the ability to give back Shailene Woodley on George Clooney And while George Clooney, Shailene Woodley and Alexander Payne fit the above descriptions to a T (nothing like a bit of forward planning), when it came to blowing their own trumpets, the opposite was the case for all three — Woodley gushes about Clooney, Payne praises Woodley and Clooney's words describe Payne. It all sounds very confusing, but it's really pretty straight forward. Honest. Matt King (Clooney), a wealthy lawyer descended from Hawaiian royalty and white missionaries, is also the sole trustee of 25,000 acres of untouched land on the island of Kaua'i, passed down from his ancestors. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings of the same name, The Descendants tells his story after his wife slips into a coma following a boating accident. This month, The Descendants won two Golden Globe Awards from five nominations. Woodley was nominated for her role as Best Supporting Actress. The movie has also earned five nominations at the 84th Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Clooney. Cast and crew were packed up and shipped to Hawaii for four months of filming, a place Woodley says her heart belongs. "My body is from LA but my heart is from Hawaii," said the 20-year-old, who attended a screening of the film at the Dubai International Film Festival 2011 along with Payne. "It's a magical place. There's an energy there that's not tangible. It grounds me and centres me. People are very connected to nature there." Just like her 17-year-old stroppy teenager in the movie, Woodley is not your average LA film star, answering "a dress" when asked what she'd wear to the Dubai premiere of the movie. "I don't care about fame," she said. "I just have so many better things to do than care about it." Expressing her annoyance at having to wear make-up for the television cameras during interviews — a darn sight more than she wears during the filming of the movie — Woodley starts to become agitated. "I'll never be that person who wears a lot of make-up, fake lashes, dyes my hair. It's just not me. I think there are far more important things in the world to care about. You all have permission to slap me 20 million times if I ever change," she's quick to add. "I used to do all of my own styling. It became like, I need three dresses a day and with everything else going on you literally don't have time to find something to wear, so I work with a stylist now. I don't like working with stylists because you end up looking like someone you're not." Luckily celebrity stylist Chris Zero conformed to few of the stereotypes you'd imagine. ‘Awesome' "I walked into her house and she was wearing baggy jeans with a white shirt and no bra and I was like ‘yes, we're gonna get along great'," she said, laughing awkwardly. "She's awesome and amazing and super talented but also listens to who you are." Payne said Woodley was his first choice. "I auditioned about 200 girls for the part. She was the one I wanted. There was no second choice." Renowned for his realistic view, natural dialogue and emphasis on a genuine script, Payne says he casts "people to play a role rather than actors to play someone else". "The oldest cliché is the truest," he said. "90 per cent of directing is casting. It's the most important aspect of narrative cinema after the screenplay. I try to be non-emphatic as a director and trust I cast that particular person for a reason." Neither Clooney or Woodley wear make-up in the film. They wear regular clothes — Clooney in a vast array of somewhat dowdy Hawaiian shirts, Woodley often in jeans. "There are seven billion people on earth right now," Payne said interrupting a journalist during his round-table interview in Dubai, something he does often. "That means we have seven billion versions of grief. Seven billion versions of laughter. Clooney was just the right age and his darkness made me believe he could be one 16th Hawaiian maybe with a bit of Portuguese," explaining why Clooney fit the bill so well. "Anytime you make a movie you're a prisoner to whoever happens to be famous in the six month window in which you're casting the film. And for me George Clooney was by far the most appropriate. I like him as a star. He's an old-fashioned star and remarkably versatile." Luckily for Payne, Clooney was a fan in return. Having flown to Toronto to meet the star for dinner in September 2009, by November Clooney had signed and in March the following year they were all on set. "He will tell you he was interested in working with me as a director," said Payne, looking a little embarrassed. "I can say that only because I've heard him say that. It's very flattering and I'm slightly sheepish about sharing such information but were he here, he would say some version of that." Woodley, star of ABC series The Secret Life of the American Teenager, cried her eyes out when she first reached the set of The Descendants. Now having worked alongside such a veteran actor for so long you'd expect the young actress to have stripped her mentor for tips of the trade. Not so. "He gave me a lot of tips on the politics and logistics of the industry, which was great. But as far as acting goes I think it's such a personal thing. Everyone approaches acting from such a different way," she said. However, Clooney did impress Woodley in many other ways. "He's a super human. He's so generous and grateful. And not for the material things he has but for the ability to give back. You hear of him being a prankster but you don't necessarily hear of him as being philanthropic. He's does things for people to make a difference in their lives even if it's a challenge for him. "A crew member had an aneurism on set, which was crazy," she said. "George said he would match whatever the crew raised to give to the family. We all threw in but I think he ended up tripling the amount and not telling anyone. "There really isn't any way to pinpoint how generous he is." Months after wrapping up filming, Clooney paid a surprise visit to a town more than 90 minutes out of LA to surprise Woodley at a charity event. "My mum and I have a charity and we threw a fundraiser a few weeks ago. Fox gave us the movie to screen and we asked people to donate to come see it. We were doing the Q&A afterwards — me, Beau Bridges and Matthew Lillard — and the back door opened. I saw George's jacket and George's shoes and I was like, ‘there is no way that's George'." Turns out he drove an hour and half to participate in a 10-minute Q&A. "It was for an eclectic, weird suburban crowd but he came just because he knew it would make a difference." Fitting in perfectly with his no make-up-wearing cast, Payne claims the film is an extremely faithful adaptation of the book, the story originally set in Hawaii. "It was very cinematic," he said. "Not just for the physical aspects, the ocean, the nature. But for the rhythms of life portrayed in the film. Getting into that weird middle class decaying aristocracy." Having received critical acclaim the world over, The Descendants is a simple story told by real people. Clooney plays a slightly weathered father who is struggling with two daughters. He plays it perfectly. "George never wears make-up in films," said Payne. "I told him before shooting to have ‘gone to sea', that's all I told him. I think he may have stopped working out a bit. He was eager to be that guy. The vanity of the good ones is to be a good actor, to use their body as an instrument. If they have real vanity, as in ‘I only want to look like this or like that' then I just think they're not very good actors."