Shailene Woodley gushed that it was “amazing” to see former president Barack Obama’s daughter Malia Obama at a Dakota Access Pipeline protest at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Monday, January 23.
The Big Little Lies actress, 25, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the oil pipeline, which runs near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s land and could potentially contaminate its water supply.
“It was amazing to see Malia,” Woodley told Democracy Now. “I saw her last night when we did the event with [Standing Rock Sioux Tribute] Chairman Dave Archambault. And it was incredible to see her there.”
Woodley commended the 18-year-old for finding her own identity and supporting the cause. “To witness a human being and a woman coming into her own outside of her family and outside of the attachments that this country has on her, but someone who’s willing to participate in democracy because she chooses to, because she recognizes, regardless of her last name, that if she doesn’t participate in democracy, there will be no world for her future children.”
The former first daughter’s trip to the film festival came just days after her father’s presidency came to an end. During the vacation, she also attended a screening of the movie Beach Rats on Tuesday, January 24, according to The Wrap, and did some shopping at the ski town.
“Malia was with a friend shopping at the Sundance Film Festival store,” an onlooker told Us Weekly. “There was one Secret Service guy with her. She bought a Sundance sweatshirt!”
Malia is taking a gap year before attending Harvard University in the fall. She spent a few months in Peru and Bolivia last fall and now has reportedly accepted an internship with the Weinstein Company film studio.