KAITLYN DEVER
The Unbelievable Booksmart Actress' New Work
Before Olivia Wilde’s 2019 directorial debut Booksmart, you may not have heard the name “Kaitlyn Dever.” That is unless you watched the Tim Allen sitcom Last Man Standing. With ten years of acting experience, there is no doubt you’ll see more of Dever soon.
To say Booksmart was pivotal for Dever is an understatement. As Amy, a high school lesbian who wants to do right by the world, Dever received top billing and a chance to show her comedic chops. She took to the script — and her co-star Beanie Feldstein — easily.
“No one wanted to give me this kind of opportunity, and by that I mean a leading role in a really big comedy type film,” she told IndieWire. “It’s actually one of those scripts that you think, ‘This is the kind of thing that I’m going to have audition five times for and really, really fight for it to get these people to want me for this role.'”
Though she didn’t land a nomination for her performance as Amy at the 2020 Golden Globes, she did earn one for the Netflix limited series Unbelievable. That role was the polar opposite of Booksmart. She plays a rape victim forced to recount her testimony countless times, which reveals cracks in the justice system. The hard-to-watch but important series sets Dever up for taking on any role in the future.
That provides a lead to her upcoming work. Hulu recently dropped the trailer for its anthology series, Monsterland. Dever stars as the main character in one of the episodes and narrates the trailer in a thick Southern accent. The series serves as a great start to the spooky season.
Next up on her filmography is Dopesick, which showcases how corporations perpetuate the opioid crisis. Dever will star alongside Michael Keaton and Peter Skarsgard in what is sure to be a dramatic, meaningful story for this era.
On a lighter note, though, she will act with quarantine buddy Ben Platt who will reprise his role as Evan Hansen in the film adaptation of the Broadway hit and Tony-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen. Dever will portray Zoe Murphy. The cast is already jam-packed with big names: Julianne Moore, Amy Adams, and Amandla Stenberg, to name a few. The next couple of years will be significant for Dever, a young talent set to dominate our screens.
