A scene between Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Al (Christian Madsen).
THE SUPPORTING CAST
Neil Burger directs Ben Lloyd-Hughes, who plays Will.
British actor Ben Lloyd-Hughes was cast as Will, a transfer from Erudite who becomes one of Tris’s good friends. He was drawn to the idea of Will as a truly strong character who makes choices for principled reasons. “Anyone who changes faction in this world is a rebel,” says Lloyd-Hughes. “So there is a part of Will that’s a rebel. But there’s also a part of him that’s drawn to this idea that he can be brave. That he can make the noble decision and the honorable decision and stand out from the crowd in the best possible way.”
Mekhi Phifer, who plays Dauntless leader Max, remembers reading the script for the very first time. He says, “One of the things that resonated with me was that it felt limitless. There wasn’t just one story to be told. There are multifaceted characters and issues that could be brought to light, and that was very interesting to me.” In addition, he liked the idea of being part of a film project that his family would want to see. Even though Max is the leader, Phifer points out, it is actually Eric—his deputy—who’s the darker character.
Max (Mekhi Phifer).
Eric (Jai Courtney).
While Eric seems to lack any feeling for the initiates, the actor who plays him, Jai Courtney, dug deep to understand Eric’s inner life. “I didn’t want him to be this villain in the background who’s kind of twisting his mustache and plotting,” Courtney says. “It needed to be about more than that for me. As an actor, no matter how nasty your character is or what they’re capable of, you have to find compassion for them. In some ways, I guess, I play the drill sergeant role in the training process. But Eric, my character, is also tied up with this super-objective, to take things over eventually, so he’s got an ulterior motive.”
As Christina, Zoë Kravitz—the daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, and star of X-Men: First Class—immediately clicked with Woodley. Like their characters, the actors became fast friends. Kravitz explains, “Christina’s relationship to Tris is like mine with Shai in real life. They meet early on, and they’ve both transferred. They’ve both just left the factions of their birth to join Dauntless. And they both just have this immediate connection, like you do when you meet someone on the first day of school. They’re both really honest and brave and a little scared at the same time.”
Christina (Zoë Kravitz)
Molly (Amy Newbold)
Woodley and Kravitz were joined by Amy Newbold, a newcomer, as Molly. A Chicago native, Newbold had recently left her job as a casting director’s assistant to become a nursing student, but the casting director called her when she saw that Divergent was looking for an actor with Newbold’s body type and coloring. The character she read for, Molly, was defined by her physicality, and Newbold had only ever taken a couple of kickboxing classes. She nailed her first read, though, and went right into training with the rest of the Dauntless crew. Of Newbold, producer Lucy Fisher says, “It’s really fun to have somebody who has not worked before turn out to be such a star.”
Caleb Prior (Ansel Elgort)
New Yorker Ansel Elgort would play a role that was set apart from the other actors. While most of them were members of the Dauntless pack, Elgort took on the role of Caleb, Tris’s brother, who leaves Abnegation for Erudite. Elgort was intrigued by the character. “He really chooses faction over blood,” Elgort explains, referring to a phrase that echoes throughout the film. “He truly thinks that Erudite is the faction that should be in charge. Since he’s coming from Abnegation, his mind is empty, ready to be corrupted, so he believes a lot of what he hears when he transfers.” Elgort’s character has a long journey ahead of him, in Divergent and its sequel.
CASTING THE NEXT GENERATION
Producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher study a scene with Kate Winslet (Jeanine Matthews).
As the training continued, the final roles of Divergent were cast. As producer Doug Wick tells it, “Part of Tris’s becoming a powerful person is facing off with someone even more powerful than she is. The stronger her antagonist, the more profound her rite of passage.” He knew they would want a famous actor to play Jeanine, the dangerous leader of Erudite, but even he was surprised when producer Lucy Fisher decided to pursue Kate Winslet—star of Titanic and the youngest actress ever to receive six Academy Award nominations. Wick says, “Lucy knew we had to find someone big to play Jeanine. That’s why she went after Kate Winslet. Kate is associated with quality and taste—and here she’s the antagonist, which is a departure for her. As soon as you have an actor with her stature on board, your project has new credibility within the creative community.”
Veronica Roth could hardly believe what she was hearing. “They kept telling me who they were approaching for the adults’ roles, and they said they were going to talk to Kate Winslet, and I was like, ah, good luck,” she says. “I’m like a defensive pessimist. I just don’t believe that anything is going to work out until it does. So when Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn and Kate Winslet were cast, I just didn’t know what to do with myself anymore! I just wrote a series of exclamation points on my Tumblr and my Twitter, because it was all I could say.”
The role of Jeanine was unlike any Kate Winslet had tackled before. “She’s a master manipulator,” Winslet explains. “And it’s been fascinating for me to play someone who is quite blatantly cunning and manipulative, because it’s not really in my nature at all. I’ve never really played an evil person before now. So it’s been amazing to try and get inside the mind of a person like that. Taking over the world is pretty much her goal. She’s a very clever piece of work.”
Although the film is based on a young adult novel, the veteran actors all knew they were signing on for a movie for adults as well. For instance, Tony Goldwyn (of television’s Scandal) related to the script both as a son and as a father. “I think Veronica Roth has hit on something so classic, in terms of a rite of passage,” he explains. “Every one of us needs to claim an identity for ourselves and figure out who we are, even while it means differentiating ourselves from our parents. It can create tremendous anxiety and uncertainty, even trauma.”
But if it is traumatic for the person making the choice, it is also traumatic for the person left to deal with the consequences—in this case his character, Tris’s father, Andrew Prior. Goldwyn says, “Andrew’s tragedy is of losing a child, but he’s not just feeling the personal loss. He is aware of how the world is changing and frustrated that Tris doesn’t understand the impact of what she is doing. Andrew knows that Jeanine will use Tris’s defection against the faction. But he’s dealing with a daughter who just doesn’t get it. In an Abnegation-type way, he tries to make her understand what the consequences of her behavior might be.”
Tris (Shailene Woodley) and her father, Andrew Prior (Tony Goldwyn).
Natalie Prior (Ashley Judd).
In the film, Ashley Judd would play Goldwyn’s wife, Natalie Prior. The two actors had worked together before, in Someone Like You as well as other films, so Goldwyn knew that they would be able to tap into the kind of affection that would make them seem convincing as a married couple. Judd was also ready to delve into the movie’s other family relationships. “Right away we’re introduced to these lovely siblings, a brother and sister who clearly are simpatico, and their futures lie in the balance,” Judd says. “We can already see that Tris has great admiration, respect, and love for her parents. But she also has that dramatic conflict inside herself. . . .”
When Caleb and Tris both pick new factions at the Choosing Ceremony, Andrew and Natalie are left alone. But Natalie carries a secret: Once, she was Dauntless herself. Judd explains, “For whatever reason, my character hasn’t found a compelling reason yet to tell her children that she was born into a different faction and chose to defect. Even when I do tell Tris, I don’t unpack all of the information.” At the end of the film, Tris is left with only the barest outline of her mother’s histor
y, and she can’t ask Natalie any more questions.
Maggie Q, star of television’s Nikita, signed on to play another important adult in Tris’s world: Tori, who administers the aptitude test. Tori is the first to discover that Tris is Divergent, and later, the first to warn Tris that she’s in danger. Tori has developed a hard exterior over her time in Dauntless, and at first she doesn’t seem like an ally. As Maggie Q explains, “Tori’s a vet. She’s not one of the new kids. And she’s this sort of mysterious character that becomes a guide for Tris.”
An action star herself, Q was drawn to the action-packed script, but she also liked that the role would give her a chance to explore her softer side. “I like that idea of Tori being the unwilling mentor,” she says. “The person who has knowledge that she doesn’t want to share. Even though she’s Dauntless, she has to come out of her space and sphere to be able to help someone. She doesn’t really know Tris, but she connects to Tris’s situation.”
Tori Wu (Maggie Q).
Marcus Eaton (Ray Stevenson).
While Maggie Q would play a mentor, Ray Stevenson signed on to play Marcus, Four’s abusive father. Stevenson had played a crime boss in Dexter, but he imagined Marcus as a more complicated character. “I wouldn’t call Marcus the villain of the piece,” Stevenson muses. “He sees in Four, maybe, too much reflection of himself.”
As the Dauntless actors’ training wrapped up, the other actors flew to Chicago to join them. Shooting on the film began in early April 2013, which meant that the sets and locations and costumes had to be ready, down to the last detail.
STILL NOT FOUND: THE PERFECT FOUR
Theo James as Detective Walter Clark in Golden Boy (2013).
While the rest of the cast was coming together, though, the search for Four continued. Producer Lucy Fisher remembers, “We kept saying, ‘Who’s Four? Who’s Four?’ We saw many leading men, and they were all interesting in their own way, but none was quite what we were looking for. It was difficult to find the perfect Four, to find somebody that could dominate Shailene, because she’s so strong. We were getting near the end of our rope, sort of saying we don’t know who the right person is. Then Theo James walked in and it was immediate; oh my . . . he’s here. He did it. He did a chemistry reading with Shailene, and it knocked everybody out.”
Author Veronica Roth adds, “The only screen test I saw was Theo’s with Shailene, so I got to see their dynamic together, and they had incredibly good chemistry. After I saw it I was like, Please get him. Please! I was just thrilled when he was cast and the deal closed because he was perfect. Amazing.”
Adult audiences would know the young English actor from his brief, but critically important, role as Mr. Pamuk in the television series Downton Abbey. Younger audiences might recognize him from the film Underworld: Awakening, or his work in television series like Bedlam and Golden Boy. A starring role in Divergent, though, would give him much wider exposure and a new degree of fame. Those possibilities appealed to James, but what really drew him to the movie was the character himself.
James says, “I love that Four is a person who thinks before he speaks, who holds back—he’s a watchful person. He’s listening and watching, but he doesn’t always feel like he needs to speak or to throw his weight around. Four has an old-school quality, a stillness and strength.”
When he first read with Woodley, he remembers, Neil Burger warned him that Woodley would push back, challenge him. As predicted, she was forceful in her reading, but James was able to stand up to her. That was one important part of his character, James decided—his power and bravery. The other was his ability to be honest. James says, “When they’re on the Ferris wheel, climbing up, Tris asks ‘Are you scared?’ And Four is supposed to be this masculine tough guy, but instead of denying it, he’s straight about it. He says, ‘Yes, I’m scared,’ knowing that everyone is afraid of something. The fact that he’s so comfortable with himself, that he can admit his own weaknesses, somehow makes him seem even stronger.” James was able to connect with both sides of the character, the fierce and the vulnerable.
“Casting the right actors for the lead roles of Divergent was one of the most crucial elements that we needed to make sure was right,” remembers Patrick Wachsberger, cochairman of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “We took our time and were very thoughtful to find the right pair that could portray Tris and Four and the chemistry presented by Veronica Roth in her book. When Shailene Woodley and Theo James auditioned, their connection to the characters and each other was instant. Individually they are both very talented, but together they have a dynamic that matched exactly what was needed to tell our story. Their performances are brilliant in this film and we know fans of the book, as well as moviegoers who will be introduced to this story for the first time, will quickly fall in love with the pair.”
Tobias “Four” (Theo James).
LEARNING TO FIGHT
With their ensemble of actors complete, Burger and the producers called them together in Chicago to begin a sort of initiation of their own. They would need to get to know their parts and come together as a group, but most importantly they would need to get into the kind of physical shape that would mark them as Dauntless. As Miles Teller puts it, “This was not some actor training; this was legitimate body training.”
Stunt coordinator Garrett Warren was their coach and choreographer. He recalls, “I had worked with Neil on Limitless, and he called asking me to come up with another inventive and ingenious fight style. Later, we sat down to talk about how we could do this. Stance was one way. Usually people have a regular fighting stance with their hands up—we wanted to do something that differentiated it. So we have the two hands folded in the front. We also worked on using a hammer fist rather than a regular punch. The hammer fist is supposed to be something that generates a little more velocity, a little more force—and also saves the bony prominences on your hand.”
Director Neil Burger and Shailene Woodley (Tris) discuss the Dauntless fighting stance.
In addition to mastering this uniquely Dauntless style of fighting, the actors learned the individual steps of their many fight sequences. Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller, as Tris and Peter, had to be careful as they worked through their choreography. Woodley says, “Neither of us had done stunt fights before. They’re all very mechanical and timed . . . if I swing too hard, then I could actually hurt Miles, and if he swings too hard, he could actually hurt me. So we had to be tough onscreen but also compassionate toward each other as actors, recognizing that we could cause each other harm if we weren’t gentle.”
Tris (Shailene Woodley) fights Peter (Miles Teller) as Four (Theo James) looks on.
Not all the young actors were required to do the training. Ansel Elgort arrived in Chicago later than the others because his character is not Dauntless. And Jai Courtney, who plays Eric, says, “There’s actually not that much action in this movie for me personally. I kind of managed to skip boot camp on this production, which I wasn’t too upset about.”
Four (Theo James) gives a demonstration with a Dauntless initiate.
For the others, though, the training was an opportunity to build strength as well as character. Theo James, for instance, stayed apart from the others during training, because Four is supposed to be in a superior position. Although they’re all about the same age, he is in a position of authority. Christian Madsen remembers a particular day, when “we had to do this training stuff with extras they’d brought in to be Dauntless members, and we’re all together, and Theo came out as Four. He came out yelling at everybody, made Shai drop down and do twenty push-ups, and he was just . . . Four. It helps you out later, when you’re shooting the scene, and you revert back to remembering how he treated everyone.”
With Garrett Warren’s guidance, the actors grew stronger and felt more fully developed as members of the Dauntless faction. As Ben Lloyd-Hughes puts it, “It’s always good to have a coach there, telling you what to do and pushing you further. Those guys can help you achieve
more physically than you ever could on your own in a gym.” Even for characters with little dialogue in the Divergent script, it was important that they get to a place where they could seem physically threatening.
Shailene Woodley (Tris) and Miles Teller (Peter) film a scene with guidance from stunt coordinator Garrett Warren.
SCOUTING LOCATIONS
The Navy Pier Grand Ballroom is the setting for the final test of the fear landscapes.
Location manager James McAllister had been working around the clock. “I would say we probably scouted a hundred or more locations, and used about half,” he says. “Neil was trying to find a lot of places that you would still see a hundred and fifty years from now, but used in a different way. The plaza we used for the high school, at the Michigan Avenue Bridge, is in a location that could still be a center of the city, well into the future. If a location felt too much like it had been seen in other films, though, Neil wanted to stay away from it, or look at it from a new perspective.”
As McAllister scouted for locations, he kept in mind what the filmmakers would need to do to transform them for shooting. He explains, “We discussed the city streets and how best to give them the look of a hundred and fifty years from now. What kinds of present-day elements would we have to deal with? Traffic signals, lines in the streets, trash cans, bike racks, city street signs . . . all those things would have to go.” Since the future in Divergent would be mostly free of cars, the production team would need to make the streets look unused or in disrepair, so ordinary items like signs and crosswalks would be extraneous. Some would be removed before the shoot, and some would be removed much later, in postproduction by a team led by visual effects supervisor Jim Berney.