Unabomber star Shailene Woodley spoke with ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese about the new Netflix movie. Woodley discussed playing an FBI agent, what interested her about the role, and the film’s unique structure. Unabomber begins streaming on Netflix on September 25, 2026.
“Inspired by true events, Unabomber follows Ted Kaczynski’s (Jacob Tremblay) transformation from 16-year-old Harvard prodigy into the infamous Unabomber. Subjected to controversial psychological experiments by Professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe), Kaczynski’s troubled past resurfaces decades later when his manhunt, led by FBI agent Joanne Miller (Shailene Woodley), brings to light the chilling consequences of ambition and isolation,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Shailene, in this film, you’re playing a composite character. You’ve played real people in the past, in Adrift and Snowden. What did you like most about this being a combination of real history, but also having the freedom to build your own character and take some liberties?
Shailene Woodley: Yeah. Because Joanne was an amalgamation of many detectives, I was able to create her with Janice, our filmmaker. I loved learning about what it takes, the psychology behind being a profiler, and the psychology behind being a linguistics expert, because that was Joanne’s background.
There’s an obsessive quality to these detectives, these people who really devote their lives to finding the solution to something that is seemingly unsolvable, that I really enjoyed listening to people who live that life and hearing their stories, and then exploring within myself just what it would be to wake up every day and go to sleep every single day with this same North Star that is like an incessant bug that won’t go away.
In the film, we also see Joanne face some tribulations in the workplace. It’s partially because they’re not taking seriously this look into linguistics, because it’s new and it’s different from what they were trying to do. But it’s also because she’s a woman. We still see that in the workplace nowadays. What resonated with you about Joanne’s desire to do right and go off the beaten path because she wants to save lives?
There’s a softness to her. Also, recognizing what it would have been like to be a female detective in that world, in the bureau during that time, and the instinctual impulses that she had. Being able to back her ideas and back her leads with proof and data, but the proof came from a linguistics perspective, which is very different and very much juxtaposed the way of doing things during that time as an investigator.
I thought that that was beautiful and beautifully written in the screenplay. I was actually quite thrilled to have some moments between Alexander Ludwig that these two people got to go head-to-head and to see how disrespected she was in the office, and yet how vindicated she was by the end when she was told that she indeed was correct.
Tyler Treese: This film is really interesting structurally because it’s these two parallel stories and it’s jumping between times. You’re in the later section, so there’s this whole other movie that you’re not really a part of with Russell Crowe. I’m sure you would have loved to do scenes with him, but what did you like about the film managing to show these different sides of the Unabomber and then have this great kind of cat-and-mouse chase that you’re a part of?
Shailene Woodley: I really thought that it was an innovative way of storytelling, especially a story that many people are already familiar with. I loved being able to watch it as an audience member and celebrate what Jacob and Russell and Annabelle Wallis were able to do. I think it couldn’t have been easy in the edit to stitch these worlds that were so different, not just in context, but visually very differently shot, and make them make sense.
Thanks to Shailene Woodley for taking the time to talk about Unabomber.