John Green and support group extras talk to NPR about TFIOS

Pittsburgh's NPR station, 90.5 FM, talked to John Green on the set of the The Fault in Our Stars about the production of the movie and portraying cancer patients honestly in the story. He said:

"What bothers me most about the way that we portray people with disabilities and chronic illnesses in television in films is that we ignore them, and then secondarily when they are portrayed, it's usually as a mere tragedy or as this bright-eyed perfect person who you know, is laid-low by this evil disease," he said. "And the true story is much more complicated than that."
Green said characters with cancer are often used in books and movies to teach healthy people important lessons, which is a dehumanizing way of imaging illness to a sick person.

"One of the things that excite me most about 'The Fault in Our Stars' movie is that in every scene in the movie Hazel is wearing a nasal canulla," Green said. "She can’t breathe without this supplemental oxygen. In every scene of the movie Augustus Waters is walking with a limp because he has a prosthetic leg. You don’t see those characters just as tragedies you see them as full people because the movie is devoted to them."

 They also talked to Alexander Murphy about his experience with cancer and being a support group extra in the movie. He met with Shailene Woodley before production even started.

"I actually got to meet with Shay before I even went on set," Murph said. "She actually talked to the directors and just wanted to meet some cancer patients. She just came to Oakmont and just hung out for a while. It was really cool."
Woodley had questions in preparing for her role, like "what it's like when you're on chemo, and what it's like when your recovering from chemo," Murph said. "It's like, it's difficult to explain. You’re in a whole different state. You feel sick, you feel weak, you have trouble thinking. It's really quite awful."

 Bethany Leo, another support group extra, talked about her experience of being cast before she had even read the book. She said she immediately identified with Augustus and Hazel.

"Whenever other people who have never been through cancer or have never had somebody associated cancer, they kind of read the book as just a love story, but like I read it as just so much more," said 23-year-old Bethany Leo.
"I had heard of The Fault in our Stars," she said. "I mean, being in the whole cancer circle, the kids cancer circle, people are always like, 'Oh you should read this book,' or, 'Oh you should look at this …'"
But Leo hadn’t read the book until she auditioned for a part in the movie.
"I’m really not much of a book reader, but this book I could read over and over again," she said. "I guess I understand it on a different level than some people do."
Even when describing her grueling experience with cancer, including misdiagnoses, chemotherapy, blood transfusions and her PET scan, Leo uses some of the same language character Augustus Waters used in the book when describing her PET scan. 
"I lit up like a Christmas tree, and it was in every single bone in my body," she said.

To listen to the entire NPR audio clip and read the transcript of the report, visit 90.5 FM WESA Pittsburgh's NPR News.

Shailene for The Hollywood Reporter's Beauty Issue

Shailene Woodley and her make-up artist Gloria Noto posed for The Hollywood Reporter and talked natural beauty products and more!

“One of my best friends was like, ‘You’re going to love her because she uses very light makeup and she’s the best,’ ” recalls Woodley. Says Noto: “We connected right away — we instantly started talking about tinctures and herbal remedies. It was cool.”

The rising star surprised fans when she arrived at the Elle soiree with a much shorter do. The pixie, which was cut on set for her role as a cancer patient in The Fault in Our Stars, drew all eyes to Woodley’s visage and her clean, sophisticated makeup. “It’s all about her face right now,” says makeup artist Gloria Noto, who met Woodley, 21, in 2011 during The Descendants promotional tour and bonded over their love of organic beauty.

“A flawless foundation was key,” says Noto of Woodley’s new look. She applied a fruit-pigmented moisturizer in Golden Peach by 100% Pure. Adds Woodley, whose starring role in the adaptation of YA book trilogyDivergent could propel her into Jennifer Lawrence territory: “Light, simple and very classy is kind of our M.O.”

Ansel livestream celebrates 100,000 Twitter followers

On Tuesday evening Ansel conducted a livestream in honor of his 100,000 Twitter followers. He talked about his music and Ansolo, Divergent, living in New York City and The Fault in our Stars. Here are some highlights:

Filming in Amsterdam: Ansel stated that filming TFIOS in Amsterdam was great and beautiful. They had one hard scene but the rest was strolls around the city and its famous canals.

Upcoming Projects: Ansel reveal that he has two new films he has signed onto, but he can't reveal too much. One will start filming in December/January, just right before promo for Divergent starts. Insurgent will begin filming right after Divergent premieres. The second unknown project will start filming late 2014.

Working on TFIOS: He said that TFIOS has been the best project he has worked on so far in his career. TFIOS is his favorite book. He said that being able to work with Shailene in another project was awesome because she is a great actress. Working with Nat Wolff was another highlight of TFIOS for Ansel. He said working with Nat was a lot of fun. He also was amazed that he got to work with Willem Dafoe, who was cool.  

Cool fact: Josh Boone, director who in the editing process, told Ansel that he is very happy with what he has seen so far of the movie.

TFIOS in Gus POV: Although there is no plans to write TFIOS from Gus' point of view, Ansel said that it would be awesome if John Green ever decided to write it. John apparently learned a lot about Augustus Waters when he saw Ansel as Gus because John had never had to think about Gus' backstory and POV.

Ansel ended the live stream by thanking his 100,000 Twitter followers. He said that he never though 100,000 people would care about Ansel Elgort.

Check out the video below! Thanks to @JordanSheedy. via @LadyofErudite 

Ansel Elgort at the CFDA and Vogue Fashion Fund

Ansel Elgort attended the CFDA and Vogue Fashion Fund event with his sister Sophie Elgort. The event, which took place in NYC, supports young designers and gives them a head-start in their career. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and major fashion designers like Diane Von Furstenberg and Valentino also were in attendence.

Check out the pics below!

John Green talks about TFIOS Movie at Ann Katz Event in Indianapolis

David Lindquist from the Indy Star was at an Ann Katz Event in Indianapolis and briefly summed up in an article what John talked about.

picture source

"Back home in Indianapolis after spending much of two months visiting Pittsburgh and Amsterdam for the filming of “The Fault in Our Stars,” author John Green is raving about actress Shailene Woodley.

Woodley portrays Hazel Grace Lancaster, an Indianapolis teenager who finds love with a fellow cancer patient in Green’s best-selling novel.

“Not to brag, but I think I know more about Hazel’s interior experience than anyone who’s alive on the planet,” Green told a sold-out audience of 200 Ann Katz Festival of Books and Arts attendees Monday night at the Arthur M. Glick JCC. “I was worried that I would see Shai and think, ‘Oh, she has her own Hazel. She’s not my Hazel.’ But every day she was my Hazel, and that was such a gift to me.”

The film is scheduled for release on June 6, 2014. 

Check out the rest of the article, including 10 things the audience learned about John, afeter the cut