Who Is Kaitlyn Dever? New Details About The Star Of 'Booksmart' Movie — Directed By Olivia Wilde
She looks familiar for a reason.
Instagram Booksmart is a fun high school comedy that feels familiar for many reasons. It's territory that has been mined before from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to The Breakfast Club to Sixteen Candles to Dazed and Confused to Clueless to Superbad. But Booksmart is also very different for some important reasons — namely the protagonists are two girls — Molly and Amy — who are best friends finishing at the top of their class because they spent their high school years studying rather than partying or trying to climb to popularity ladder. Their worlds are shaken up when they find out their hard-partying classmates still managed to get into the same schools they did. Molly and Amy do what any teen would and decided to see how the other half lives. Kaitlyn Dever plays Amy in Booksmart. Who is Kaitlyn Dever?
1. Early years
Kaitlyn Dever was born December 21, 1996 in Phoenix, Arizona. She became interested in acting when she was five and her parents sent her to acting school. Her family moved to Dallas, Texas when her dad landed the role of the voice of Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Kaitlyn studied at the Dallas Young Actors Studio where she honed her acting skills enough to book a bunch of commercials before moving to Los Angeles.
2. She looks familiar
If Kaitlyn looks familiar to you, there's a good reason After landing her first notable role as Gwen Thompson in An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong in 2009, she went on to appear in the FX series Justified and the ABC sitcom Last Man Standing alongside Tim Allen. She has also appeared on Make It or Break It, Modern Family, Private Practice, The Mentalist and Curb Your Enthusiasm. She has two films coming out in Summer 2019 as Amy in Booksmart and as Dilly Picket in the upcoming thriller Them That Follow.
3. She moved in with her co-star
Booksmart is the directorial debut of Olivia Wilde. Kaitlyn was attached to the project for about three years before it got off the ground. She met her co-star Beanie Feldstein for the first time at a lunch with Olivia Wilde at LA's Chateau Marmont. Feldstein and Dever hit it off immediately and agreed to move in together within the first 15 minutes of knowing each other. And this may be what makes the on-screen friendship between Amy and Molly so completely believable.
4. She plays an LGBTQIA teen
Kaitlyn's Booksmart character Amy is an out lesbian teenager who sexualty is important to her character but not her only definining trait. The film gives equal attention to Amy's crushes on girls as it does on Molly's crushes on boys. We see Amy have awkward first kisses and sex as well as learn about her mastubating habits. This is territory usually reserved for straight characters but Booksmart gives equal attention to Amy and Molly's love and sexual lives.
Amy Lamare is a Los Angeles based freelance writer covering entertainment, pop culture, beauty, fashion, fitness, technology, and the intersection of technology, business, and philanthropy. She is deeply devoted to her chocolate Labrador and an avid long distance runner. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook.