Booksmart’s Beanie Feldstein & Kaitlyn Dever Play “Who’s Most Likely To...?”
A spoon is missing. Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever is ready to give up on her lunch because of the rogue utensil, and her co-star, Beanie Feldstein, is set on leaving the boardroom we’re in at the Ritz Carlton in Toronto to find one But after seeing Booksmart, Olivia Wilde’s brilliant directorial debut about two high-school besties, I know that these two are on the brink of becoming stars too famous to scour hotels for silverware, so I try to beat her to it. Feldstein and I both bolt to the door. “No, no, no, no, no,” she yells mid-dash. “You sit down!” I get there first while Feldstein yells, “My heel is caught!” She and Dever are laughing hard. Feldstein’s heel is literally stuck on a swivel chair or else she would still be chasing me down.
Within minutes of meeting Feldstein and Dever, 25 and 22, aside from their extreme humility, you’ll notice that they are awfully nice to each other. Whether it’s through countless giggly compliments or hunting down cutlery, it’s clear how much they genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They lived together while filming Booksmart — a film Refinery29 hailed as “the best high school movie for women ever” — to help create the chemistry needed to play lifelong best friends Amy and Molly, and they’ve been finishing each other’s sentences during their two-month long press tour. Their IRL and on-screen friendship is at the center of Booksmart, which comes out Friday, May 24.
So, we decided test Feldstein and Dever’s seemingly unshakeable bond with a round of high school-themed “Who’s Most Likely To...” Spoiler: They are both likely to charm the crap out of you.
Who’s most likely to … Get caught cheating on a test?
Kaitlyn Dever: Me.
Beanie Feldstein: Equal.
Kaitlyn: We've both done it.
Beanie: Mine wasn't a test, it was homework once.
Kaitlyn: Okay, cheating is a stretch. I'd say I cheated once, and then I had my book open a couple of times… my teacher technically said I could, but it still felt wrong.
… Skip a party to hang out in the library?
Beanie: Me.
Kaitlyn: I would be able to skip a party for sure, I've skipped many a party, but not to go to a library.
Beanie: You’re less of a homebody than I am. Nine hundred thousand times in college I was like, "You go on, I'm going to finish this sociological memoir."
… Get caught making out with a crush in the library?
Kaitlyn: Nope. I don’t want to PDA. Someone might see!
Beanie: Hell, no! In the stacks? Isn’t that what the kids say? I’m too scared of authority.
… Graduate with honors?
Kaitlyn: Oh, Beanie.
Beanie: Excuse me, both of us.
Kaitlyn: You don't get to say me. It's you.
… Score the winning touchdown?
Beanie: Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn: Yeah, that's right, I touch all the downs.
Beanie: There's a scene where we're running, and there was one take where I was ahead of Kaitlyn, and it made my whole life. I think maybe it was the first take. It was a weird fluke.
Kaitlyn: Fluke in the system. Not my best.
… Pull a grand romantic gesture in front of the whole school?
Beanie: I think Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn: Yeah, I like cheesy things sometimes.
Beanie: And you would be adorably brave enough to do it.
Kaitlyn: My sister got asked out to prom once in front of the whole school, and that was a really cool moment for me. He stood up on a desk and said, "Will you go to prom with me, Maddie?" And Maddie is one of those people who thought it was a joke.
Beanie: My girlfriend recently had mono, and I'm such an intense hypochondriac, so taking care of her [while she was] very ill and very contagious felt like a romantic gesture. It was so clear how much I love her because I wasn’t even that freaked out.
… Be the teacher's pet?
Kaitlyn: Both of us for sure.
Beanie: We’re obsessed with our high-school teachers.
Kaitlyn: I got my teacher a nice necklace at my graduation.
Beanie: Classy.
Kaitlyn: The sweetest thing was is not that I got her a necklace but that I went to go pick up my graduation photo at the school a month or two later, and she was wearing her necklace.
Beanie: Oh my god, she didn't know you were coming!
Kaitlyn: No, it was total surprise, and she was wearing it!
… Look back on their high school years as the best days of their life?
Beanie: I don't really subscribe to that ideology.
Kaitlyn: Beanie has a whole theory on this.
Beanie: In college, my best friends were freaking out because they felt like the best time of their life was behind them senior year. I was like, "This ideology's really messing with people's heads." I wish I could undo that for everybody. I'm 22, and I've already had the best time of my life? That's sad. You should have a beautiful time, but then also know that there will be other beautiful experiences to come.
Kaitlyn: I fully agree.
Beanie: So, both of us and neither of us.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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