Watch Shailene Woodley freak out as her long hair gets hacked off

Shailene Woodley may be all child-of-the-earth and nature-y and stuff, but that doesn’t mean she was completely zen when she saw more than half of her long hair hacked off in preparation for a movie role.

Far from it, actually. The 22-year-old actress was brought to tears by the shears last August, when her hairdresser sectioned off her hair into four ponytails and chopped them off one by one to set the stage for the final trim.

“You see how thick this is?,� the hairstylist says on video -- possibly just to freak everyone out even more -- as she’s making the first cut.

“I might cry so hard, you guys!,� Woodley squeals as she’s handed the freestanding ponytails one by one. “I still haven’t looked yet. I’m afraid to look.�

But have no fear, Shailene: Hair is what we like to call “sustainable.� It will grow back.

Woodley parted with her long hair to play a 16-year-old girl with terminal cancer in the movie adaptation of the young-adult book “The Fault in Our Stars,� by John Green. Filming started in late August, and the movie hits U.S. theaters on June 6.

“It’s a cancer movie that’s not about cancer,� she told MTV News in an interview posted Wednesday. “It’s a love story about two kids with cancer, but it’s not about cancer.�

Chatting along with her costar and fellow “Divergent� alum Ansel Elgort, she said it was great to see Green cry on the set.

That kind of reaction “gives you confidence, but it also, you feel like a little kid,� she said. “You just gave somebody a present and they really liked it.�

Better to cry from happiness than from a haircut, right?

ALSO:

Peaches Geldof death: Heroin use played a likely ‘role’

Ellen Page on ‘Ellen’: Talks ‘shame, guilt for not being out’

‘Lovable,’ ‘clumsy klutz’ Jennifer Lawrence is FHM’s sexiest woman

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.