Shailene Woodley will play Hazel Grace, and I don’t know how I feel about it.
I mean, Woodley could be fantastic as the cancer-ridden 16-year-old narrator of John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars” — sarcastic, intensely thoughtful and determined to minimize the pain she causes others. If Woodley plays Hazel as more Alex King in “The Descendants” than Amy Juergens from “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” nerdfighters everywhere will sigh in relief.
But what if she doesn’t?
You see, Hazel has to be perfect. Her character is impossibly complex and incredibly important. “The Fault in Our Stars” is Green’s movie debut. Everything hinges on Hazel, and therefore, Woodley.
Yes, Green slightly assuaged my fears when he told Entertainment Weekly he was thrilled with the choice. To be honest, though, that stamp of approval only means I can start worrying about who’s going to play Hazel’s boyfriend, Augustus Waters.
The Huffington Post recently released its top five choices for actors to play the one-legged charmer: Logan Lerman, Liam Hemsworth, Dylan O’Brien, Avan Jogia and Josh Peck.
I don’t like any of those. Other names floating around the Internet include Freddie Highmore (too plucky) and Andrew Garfield (too old).
Finding a Gus will be tricky, because he needs to be both handsome and dying. He needs to look hot with an unlit cigarette in his mouth but gutted when he gets seriously sick.
Grant Gustin could do it, I think, but only if he tones down the cockiness of Sebastian from “Glee” and is more like his guest character on “CSI: Miami.”
I could keep speculating, but here’s my main message to the movie’s directors: I’m counting on you guys to pull this off.
Okay?
