Adrift: Why Shailene Woodley was left ‘MISERABLE’ during filming of harrowing true story

The star, who is also currently working on the second season of Big Little Lies, told the Times that she reduced her diet to just 350 calories a day for the last two weeks.

The diet consisted of just a can of salmon, steamed broccoli and two egg yolks, leaving her feeling “miserable”.

“I can’t sleep when I’m hungry, so I would have a glass of wine to [fall asleep],” she added.

The movie is set at sea, and was filmed almost entirely out on the open ocean, rather than in a studio.

It’s based on the story of a couple – Tami and Richard (Sam Claflin) – who plan to sail from Tahiti to San Diego but encounter a Category 5 hurricane en route.

They have no functioning radio and very limited food and water.

It wasn’t just Woodley who had to significantly reduce her diet for the role: Claflin said he did the same.

“I was on a crash diet from the second I got to Fiji,” People quotes him as saying.

“I wasn’t eating very much and I’d set out and had about three or four coffees first thing in the morning with no food and apparently that’s a recipe for disaster on a boat.

“Shailene was literally rubbing my back as I was puking over the back.”

Adrift came out in the US earlier this month and finally lands in UK cinemas this weekend.

Rotten Tomatoes aggregates its score from critics at around 72%, while audiences polled by CinemaScore have given it a B grade on an A+ to F scale.

Woodley is also billed as a producer on the drama, which is directed by Baltasar Kormákur.

Adrift is out now.