In ELLE US' February issue, cover star Shailene Woodley discussed how she knew Trump would win the election before it happened. ("I'd been on the ground for months," she said, "and we would be in small cities in America and big cities in America, and Bernie would get tens of thousands of people at his rallies. And then Trump would come and he'd get the same numbers. But Hillary would only have a few hundred people at her fundraisers.") So, when we ran into her at ELLE's Women in Television event in Los Angeles, we asked her how she plans to move forward now, with the inauguration coming up on January 20.

"I'm going to do every single thing I can to stand up against fascism, because that is not what I believe in," the Big Little Lies actress told ELLE.com. "That is not what I am here in this world to support and to birth new children into."

I'm going to do every single thing I can to stand up against fascism

Woodley added that we need to have constructive discussions about what's important to us. "Why is racism such a big deal in America? Why does that systemic problem exist and how did it start? How do we address that at the root cause of the problem? Same thing with feminism. Same thing with LGBTQ rights." She also said it's vital to talk to people you don't necessarily agree with. "I stand against hate, I stand against greed. I stand against patriarchy. I stand against anything that puts another down in a negative way. But I do stand for compassion and I do stand for empathy. Even if I don't understand why you believe certain things, I want to have a conversation about why you do."

Asked whether she'll watch the inauguration, Woodley said, "I'm taking it day by day."

The actress's latest project, the HBO show Big Little Lies, also stars Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Zoë Kravitz, and Laura Dern, and explores the complex lives of a group of women living with the pressure of keeping up appearances. It's the kind of television Woodley thinks is vital at this moment in time. "To have a show," Woodley said, "especially now that everything has gone down in our political climate, where women are at the forefront, but it's not preaching feminism, and it's not preaching a certain idealism—we don't see enough projects where you just get to know the inner psyche of a female."

From: ELLE US