At the height of her blockbuster career, Shailene Woodley was battling a "very scary" illness (opens in new tab), the actor revealed in a new interview with The New York Times (opens in new tab). 'I haven't talked about it very publicly yet, and I will one day, but I got very, very sick in my early 20s. I was doing the movie Divergent, and while I was working very hard, I was also battling a deeply personal and very scary physical situation."

"Because of that, I needed to get better and I said no on a lot of occasions. They were very successful, but I shouldn't have let them go!" And "I shouldn't have gotten sick!" There was a mix of people who said, "I should not have done that.

At times, she worried that her illness would end her career: "I wondered if I would ever get over what I was going through and be healthy, or even have the opportunity to work on a project that I could be passionate about again because of my current situation," she recalls thinking

"Being in a place where I had no choice but to surrender and give up my career brought out the negative voices in my mind and kept me spinning for years and years afterwards," Woodley said.

She told the newspaper that she is now "on the other side" of her illness, adding, "A lot of the last few years have been about focusing on mental health for me. But that work has made me feel very grounded, very grounded in who I am, and very clear about everything in my life, whether it's my career, whether it's my relationships, whether it's my own inner worth."

"I'm very grateful to have walked that line of fire.

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