Shailene Woodley learnt her ‘dream’ Spider-Man role had been cut over the phone

Shailene Woodley landed her “dream” role in Spider-Man, only to learn every single scene she filmed had been cut from the movie a year later.

The Divergent and Big Little Lies actress, 34, was cast as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opposite Andrew Garfield and filmed a number of scenes with the heartthrob in early 2013.

“Spider-Man’s my favourite superhero; Mary Jane was my favourite character growing up. So, when I got it, I was like, ‘This is so exciting!’” she said during an interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.

But when the flick hit cinemas the following year, Woodley had completely vanished.

Fans were baffled by her character’s absence, as set photos of her in a red wig filming scenes with Garfield had already done the rounds online and sparked plenty of excitment about her role.

Woodley only found out her character had been cut shortly before the movie premiered, via an understandably awkward call.

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“That was a fun phone call,” she quipped.

“Then, like a year later, they were like, ‘So, you’re not in the movie anymore.’ I was like, ‘What? What do you mean?’”

“And they’re like, ‘We’ve introduced a lot of new characters in this last one, and we’re going to wait for whatever happens between [Emma Stone] and Andrew [Garfield].’”

That threw Woodley for a loop, as Stone’s character Gwen Stacey died at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, leaving room for Mary Jane to step in as his new love interest in the planned third movie.

“That’s what I was told, but again, who knows what the truth is? I could have been terrible, and they were like, ‘We can’t do this,’” Woodley joked.

Funnily enough, the third movie got the same treatment Woodley’s character did and was scrapped before it ever saw the light of day.

Garfield reprised his role as Spider-Man in Spider-Man: No Way Home alongside Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire, but that was ultimately where his version of the character ended.

Woodley’s career flourished despite the setback; she starred in the Divergent series, The Fault In Our Stars, and Big Little Lies all within five years of filming her scrapped scenes for Spider-Man.

She’s also a passionate environmental activist and was arrested in 2016 while protesting a massive pipeline in North Dakota, US.

Her arrest was even broadcast live on a Facebook livestream she had been running to show fans and fellow activists what was going on at the protest.

She later pleaded guilty to criminal trespassing and was sentenced to a year of probation, but that hasn’t stopped her from working as an activist even now.