Olivia Wilde And The Booksmart Cast Talk Harry Potter And Their Safe, Collaborate Set

By Monica Castillo


Not every actor who jumps in back of a camera can pull it off. That’s no concern for Olivia Wilde, whose feature debut, Booksmart, knocked the roof off the Paramount Theatre any time it premiered at the SXSW Film Festival last week. Her creativity and direction shine brightly because the performances of her young cast, who star in the snappy story about two driven high school ladies who impulsively determine to party like they never have before they graduate.


At the premiere, Wilde opened up about her directing journey. “It takes a lot of courage to do it,” she mentioned. “I had to spend a lot of time paying attention and observing. I began with music videos, and I propose that to anybody in here who wants to direct. It's a good way to get your feet wet. I just had a dream of building a film like the ones that I loved and still love. For me, in my teenage years, the generational anthems kept me going. It was films like The Breakfast Club, Dazed and Confused, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless. I thought we need one of these for this generation.”


Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever star in Booksmart


Wilde also had some opinions for aspiring filmmakers. “I think a lot of times people who desire to direct stop themselves because they assume they have to do every job on their own and that's just not true,” she mentioned. “The director is a collaborator. The job of the director is to prepare the most fertile environments where people can do their best work. All you have got to do is bring the correct people with each other, and then you should set them free. You have to trust them, and as soon as you've got a cast like this, you could fully trust them.”


MTV News talked with the Booksmart team — including Wilde, screenwriter Katie Silberman, and stars Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, and Billie Lourd — about how they became involved with the movie and why each person helped to make that ideal environment for the film's young actors.


MTV News: How did you become involved with Booksmart and build up your cast?


Olivia Wilde: I got involved, gosh, two as well as 1/2 years back. I'm attempting to keep track of time, although I have no sense of it. It could even be three years back, once another one of our producers, Jessica Elbaum, informed me that I should pitch on this existing script of Booksmart. I read it, and I was so in love with this concept. I'd like to prepare it my own. I require a partner to support me personalize it and make it everything that I think it actually would be in today's climate and with the performers that are working today. I think we may would make it really shine.


Feldstein and director Olivia Wilde on set


I noticed that collaborator in Katie Silberman and she reworked the script and produced the film alongside me. She was the most astonishing partner. I should say Kaitlyn Dever was already attached, which was one of the things that made me really wish to be involved because I was like — wait, we have high caliber actors on the scene? I thought how astonishing for my directorial debut to be directing such a perfect actress. Then, I got to put with each other my dream cast. I got to hire Allison Jones, who is one of the most incredible casting directors on earth plus a true collaborator. My dream cast really, truly came with each other in a way that I still can't believe happened. Beanie Feldstein came on board immediately after I forced her to meet with me in between two of her Broadway shows.


Beanie Feldstein: And two of your Broadway shows!


Wilde: It was very telling about our personalities because we were both in between shows, and Beanie sat down and had hot water with lemon, and I had six shots of espresso. I thought this was going to be a fantastic partnership.


I was so overwhelmed with gratitude whenever she mentioned yes and came on board. Then, we got to hire Billie Lourd who was my dream Gigi, and she has congregated a truly iconic efficiency. So that's my journey with this, and I'm very excited to be here.


Katie Silberman: I got an email about a script looking to sort of be reworked reconstruct. And it also was with Annapurna [Pictures] and Gary Sanchez [Productions], and Olivia Wilde was directing and Katelyn Dever was attached. I basically threw my laptop out of a window, I was so excited.


Luckily, Whenever I read it and got converse with Olivia for the opening time, we had a lot of the same ideas about the vision of what the movie would be. I was so inspired by what she already knew she wanted it to be, and I can visualize the movie she was going to prepare and what just wanted desperately to be a segment of it.


MTV News: As actors, how did you work with Olivia to develop each of your characters?


Kaitlyn Dever: It was a really, really collaborative experience. Probably, one of the most collaborative experience I've ever had with another director because I felt so involved. This movie was the initial time I ever got to go into the casting office and read with other people. That was such a cool experience. We had lot of meetings as well as a lot of rehearsals with each other, plus it made me love rehearsals. Olivia had so several ideas, I was in awe of her. It was a lot of rehearsals at the starting because we just really wanted to get that chemistry going [between the actors]. The day we met, we were in love with each other.


Feldstein: Kaitlyn and I lived with each other while we were shooting movie. The opening time we met at the Chateau [Marmont], I came up with the idea of living with each other as a joke. Then all three of us at the same time, we're like, hold up, right now that will actually be incredible because I'm going to New York and Kaitlyn lives in L.A. So, the more time we might spend with each other before we began actually filming, we knew we could be comfortable.


Dever: It's also astonishing because once you're on location for something, you're forced to sort of hang out with everybody. So we wanted to share space, eat with each other, have pajama parties.


MTV News: So, like a fun version of method acting?


Feldstein: That was such a spectacular piece of the process. Networking with with Olivia was just was so excellent. I feel like the two of those — Katie and Olivia — are true collaborators. Their friendship and their partnership were so pretty to watch, the way that they respect and love each other's ideas. Especially, because our story is about female friendship, and we had this creative team that is centered in a friendship. It was just so special. The two of those were just so giving with how we shaped all three of our characters. And Billie's character was very different...


Billie Lourd: With a whole different name in the script!


Feldstein: All three of us agree that things morphed and changed, although the heart of the characters are completely the same although with more specificity. Katie wrote me a remarkable Harry Potter reference because of our mutual obsession.


Dever: We [Feldstein and Dever] wear matching necklaces. It’s not anything people watching the movie would visualize, however it was more for us. We knew that we had matching necklaces.


Wilde: It was astonishing because as we got to know every one of the actors, we did keep evolving with them. I thought that was piece of the most thrilling piece of it because they were personalizing it and going deeper and bringing so several fantastic questions and ideas. They were being so truthful about what didn't feel right or natural, which helped us so much. With every department head — from April [Napier], our costume designer, or makeup artist, Liz Lash — I mean almost every department head, several of those were ladies, were able to work with these actors. They kept saying to me, “God, your cast just so thrilling because they have so several ideas, and they're so interesting!” Plus it was really cool because we got to really collaborate on this with each other. Billie created Gigi, who is currently a character who will go down in history.


Billie Lourd stars as Gigi (left)


Lourd: It was just really cool have the ability to do that with everybody. I barely do any rehearsals ever on anything. On this movie, it was so incredible because every scene we got to sit around and talk about for at least 20 minutes or more, and we would talk about the blocking and reading lines. I just felt so comfortable around both of these them that I was able to throw out like the weirdest ideas that I wouldn't have thrown out around other people.


Wilde: Well, it's so nice have the ability to supply that safety, to mention go for it. I promise we won't use anything bad. You won't get to the good stuff unless you risk the bad. They all were so game that we had enough material for like a 17-hour movie.