From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell, the last English-speaking person on public radio to speak to my guest, Olivia, a while.

Actor and director, whose directorial debut feature-wise is the film Booksmart.

Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

And there's so much to talk about here.

But one of the things I really like about this movie is that it reminds me of how performative high school was.

And basically you got into a role.

Yes. And all the great movies

about high school, be it Valley Girl or Fast Times, these movies introduced all this to young

cast, but also people basically were playing a role and that role kind of shifts on them

midstream, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's why I was so inspired by the Breakfast Club,

because that movie is about the shifting of those roles.

It's about seeing people more deeply.

It's about the assumptions we make

and how those assumptions unravel

and how we are brought together by humanity and pain.

And that's the essential point of Booksmart

is that we should look at each other a little more deeply and allow for multidimensionality in each other and in ourselves.

And also judge ourselves so much, right? I mean, because there's such judgment, self-judgment that comes from being at that age, isn't it?

Yes, so much. And but we do it, it's Lord of the Flies. It's a defense mechanism.

We do it because we're thrust into this microcosm of society that is so intense, so high stakes, it becomes a lot like a prison yard.

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