10 Things We Learned About The Making Of "Divergent"

"Our biggest decision was who was going to be Tris Prior? We knew we needed somebody Dauntless and tough as well as Abnegation. We were hoping Shailene could do both. And we said, 'What are you doing this weekend?' And she said, ‘I am going to be kidnapped — an urban kidnapping where I will be taken hostage and I will be chased for the whole weekend and I have to figure out how to escape and not get hurt.’ She said, 'That's what I do for pleasure.' We thought, This girl is very Dauntless! And we said she has to carry a gun and we knew she was kind of a hippie and we thought she might bridle at that but she said, 'I like to shoot my own food.'" —Lucy Fisher, producer

"The idea was to reveal Tris by opening the mirror. Mirrors and reflections play a big role in the movie. The movie's about identity: Who am I? Where do I belong? There are lots of shots of Tris glimpsing herself in various reflective surfaces — water, a spoon — which were ways to visualize the idea of those themes." —Neil Burger, director

"In auditions for Four, Shailene kept blowing people off the stage in the screen tests and finally Theo James came in and we were running into a time crunch and we were terrified that we would have to go with a compromised candidate. But he came in and was just amazing — mysterious, manly, and really strong with her. There was instant chemistry." —Doug Wick, producer

"Theo was in a television show and we didn't know if it was going to be a success or not. We were rooting for it to fail because were it to be a success we would have trouble scheduling him. So it was a happy day for us when his schedule cleared up and he could become Four." —Fisher

"We were happy to see how much the family actually looks like each other. They bonded as a family too." —Fisher

"Ansel has a total man crush on Tony Goldwyn — he was kind of obsessed with him as a role model!" —Wick

"We put all the actors through an intense training period — a three-week boot camp where they learned to fight in the new Dauntless style, shoot, and throw knives. These guys became proficient in everything except the knife-throwing. None of them could hit the target with the knives, which is really hard. The best at it was Miles Teller." —Burger

"We came up with Jai Courtney's look just a few days before we started shooting him. At first we had him with a lot of piercings and long hair but it seemed to undermine the strength of his character." —Burger

"This domed room was actually at Navy Pier in Chicago. We found everything we needed in Chicago. This location had just the right kind of Dauntless architecture: heavy steel, industrial, and brick." —Burger

"The Dauntless dining room was an indoor swimming pool built in the '30s." —Fisher

"We were having some trouble casting the part of Natalie, Tris' mom, and then we read in the news that Ashley had just dropped out of the Senate race and we thought she would be perfect, but she had been unavailable until then. We called her that afternoon and offered her the part." —Fisher

"When we first met Miles he was interested in the part of Four. We begged him to consider playing Peter and we said, 'Have you ever thought of playing a villain?' He said 'No I haven't, but I think I could be really good at playing a villain.' —Fisher

"Miles created such a strong character that for Insurgent we're writing a few extra scenes for him so that you get the pleasure of Peter causing trouble." —Wick