How the Stars of Booksmart Became Best Friends to Portray Best Friends

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2019

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Booksmart is a new movie directed by Olivia Wilde, about two smart young women, Molly and Amy, who are best friends finishing at the top of their class because they spent high school doing homework and volunteering instead of partying so they could get into good colleges. Only to realize that their hard-partying classmates also got into those same good schools. Queue the wild, wacky, booze-fueled odyssey to get to the mega-party. But the depiction of the two girls and their friendship is not generic, but specific, and fresh, and believable. The stars, Beanie Feldstein (Lady Bird) and Kaitlyn Dever (Justified), talk with Kurt Andersen about stereotypes, role models, and how they decided to become roommates before shooting the film and actually became friends before portraying them.

They also share their favorite on-screen friendships that inspired the enchanting bond between their characters.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From PRX
0:03.4	This is Studio 316.
0:08.8	I'm Kurti Anderson.
0:13.7	Experience life. Have some fun.
0:23.6	There's a new fiesta in the making as we speak. Full kegs.
0:24.6	Everybody's gonna be there.
0:26.6	Y'all to go.
0:28.6	This is our last party as high school people.
0:31.6	So we're gonna still go?
0:33.6	Yeah, what the hell, I guess.
0:35.6	School's out for summer. Yeah, what the hell? I guess. It is an American movie genre, to
0:50.1	from the 1970s to dazed and confused in the 90s to
0:56.1	super bad in the aughts, the end of high school romp comedy follows a certain template.
1:03.7	A mega party to be had and a wild wacky booze-fueled odyssey to get there.
1:09.6	These movies are also stories focused on boys' lives,
1:13.5	rueful, horny boys, wanting to break the rules, get the girl, get out of town.
1:18.7	But this summer, finally, the template has been altered, updated.
1:25.9	Missed ya.
1:26.9	I missed you. I missed you so much.
1:28.3	Been one night.
1:29.3	Book Smart is a new movie directed by Olivia Wilde about two smart young women, Molly and Amy,
1:38.3	best friends finishing at the top of their class because they spent high school getting all A's and volunteering instead
	...

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