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Shailene Woodley on 'Fault' tagline: Not what I would have chosen

Shailene Woodley, Ansel Englort and "The Fault in Our Stars" author John Green weigh in on the movie adaptation's poster tagline.

By Gabrielle Levy
The Fault in Our Stars movie poster featured a tagline many found insensitive.
The Fault in Our Stars movie poster featured a tagline many found insensitive.

Fans of John Green's bestselling novel, The Fault in Our Stars know well how the book's teenage protagonist relies on her cynical, dark sense of humor to endure extraordinary challenges.

But the tagline on the recently revealed movie poster, "One sick love story," had some saying it was glib and seemed to make light of cancer.

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"I had a really strong response to it,” explained Shailene Woodley, who stars as Hazel, a teen struggling with incurable cancer. "It’s definitely -- it’s not a tagline that I probably would have chosen by any means."

"But I think that there’s so many people who are so passionate about this book that there’s nothing that will ever satisfy everyone," she continued. "So I think it was just up to the discretion of the marketing mavens. For me, it was -- yeah, not something I would have chosen. But it seems like half the people love it and half the people don’t like it.”

As it happens, Woodley's on-screen counterpart, Ansel Elgort (playing Hazel's similarly stricken lover Augustus), said he found the tagline "cheeky."

And Green said he found the tag line fitting for the story.

"I like the tag line. I found it dark and angry in the same way that Hazel is (at least at times) dark and angry in her humor," the author wrote on his Tumblr.

"I mostly wanted something that said, 'This is hopefully not going to be a gauzy, sentimental love story that romanticizes illness and further spreads the lie that the only reason sick people exist is so that healthy people can learn lessons.' But that’s not a very good tag line. I like the tag line because it says, literally, the sick can also have love stories. Love and joy and romance are not just things reserved for the well."

Green also cheered the film's marketers for showing Hazel's face -- including her cannula -- a move unusual in an industry that prefers its female romantic leads to be physically unblemished.

The Fault in Our Stars hits theaters June 6.

[EW] [John Green Tumblr]

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