Kaitlyn Dever may embody one of literature’s most overlooked characters in “Rosaline,” 20th Century Studios’ campy and modernized retelling of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”From the perspective of the forgotten Capulet actress, Emmy-nominated actress ist anything but.
Earning her first executive producing credit on the Hulu film (based on Rebecca Serle’s book “When You Were Mine”The “Dopesick”Tinseltown star continues her rise, setting her sights to direct next and gushing over being featured alongside Julia Roberts (rom-com legend) and George Clooney “Ticket to Paradise,”In a recent interview with, he revealed that the album will debut next week.
“When I approached Rosaline, the way I developed the character and the process behind bringing this character to life was just really pushing any boundaries that I had been afraid of before,”Dever said, “because Rosaline has an intensity and her intensity is the drive throughout the story in the film, and I think that it’s not something I’ve really done before. It’s not something I’m necessarily used to.”
It might be easier over time.
Dever, who first broke out with 2019’s wildly funny “Booksmart,”First, read the script. “Rosaline” at 15, sending in an audition — for Juliet — shortly after. The 25-year old then played the waiting game, wondering what would happen to the project until she was called in 2020.
“I just remember loving it so much, and it was unlike anything I’d ever read before, and it’s such a great idea,”She spoke. “And then nothing happened with it and I always wondered — I always wanted that movie to get made and I was so excited for it to get made, even just to see it as an audience member because I just loved the story so much. And then I was shooting something about two years ago and I got a call and they were asking if I wanted to play Rosaline: The story I had been thinking about for forever and I couldn’t believe it that they were even considering me to play her and to take on that kind of role.”
After her first audition, it was. “Rosaline”That’s when she met Scott Neustadter, her long-term writing partners, and Michael H. Weber.“(500) Days of Summer”), on the set of the heart-wrenching 2013 indie “The Spectacular Now,”Kristal was her role in the film. Then, “Yes, God, Yes”Karen Maine, the helmer, was appointed to direct.
“I love the both of them and their collaboration and how they write and their style and everything,”Dever stated that the duo was a “great team.” “And then the filmmaker, Karen, is someone that immediately understood Rosaline so well, and we agreed on so many things and it was just an immediate connection that Karen and I had. I think she just really understands comedy and subtle comedy, and tackling the emotional parts of this movie.”
There are many ways to do it. “Rosaline” offered Dever a blank canvas; while the character is mentioned in Shakespeare’s seminal play, the ink runs dry on her essence and motivations. Shawn Levy and Dever were executive producers.“Free Guy”), the actress and Maine crafted the eponymous character to move beyond the movie’s cheeky tagline, “Meet Romeo’s Ex,”Be forward-thinking and holistic.
“I wanted to represent all the parts of her: She’s a total feminist and ahead of her time and she has so much drive and dedication,”Dever said. “She’s a person that is completely rejecting all the gender restrictions that were put on women at that period of time. So I wanted to represent all of these parts of her while really focusing on the comedic moments and the comedic timing.”
As Dever and Maine shaped the character out of canon and using the script as a guide, Rosaline’s grit and free-spirited energy was naturalistically born out of the star’s own personality.
“Creating this role with Karen was just my favorite thing ever, doing that on a daily basis on set, and she really allowed me to feel free in that and try different things,”The actress was recalled. “The more and more I thought about it each day on set, the more I thought Rosaline was maybe just a really heightened version of myself.”
Being involved behind the camera for the first time and getting into the filmmaking process on the ground floor also helped Dever guide the film’s narrative beyond Rosaline, while also informing her of the next steps she wants to take in her career.
“The fact that this story is told from a female perspective, I was so honored that they allowed me to come on board in that kind of way,”She spoke. “Directing is something that’s very much on my mind recently and this, I feel like, has been a really great experience to just learn. Obviously, I learn so much as an actor — being on set and collaborating with producers, directors and writers — but I think being involved in the early stages of a project really is so informative. I love being part of the process; the casting process, and the early stages of making a movie is so cool. I’m forever grateful that they allowed me to be an executive producer.”
While “Rosaline” comes from a storied tradition of revamping the Elizabethan era playwright’s works — with adaptations on a sliding scale of reinvention from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” to Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet”And ‘90s teen classics like “Clueless” and “10 Things I Hate About You” — Dever said the “unique feel”It can feel almost like a script. “standalone” movie.
“What we were trying to do with ‘Rosaline’ was something fresh and new because that’s what the script called for,”She spoke. “It called for a brand new, exciting take in this kind of world, essentially. I was also just thinking about comedies and romantic comedies in general that I sort of grew up on, like ‘The Princess Bride’ and even [laughs] I mention ‘Ella Enchanted’ just because it was one of my childhood favorites, and because Minnie Driver is in that movie — I was just over-the-moon excited when she got attached to play the nurse in this movie.” (Driver delivers several excellent line readings as the aforementioned nurse, where she is forced to explain her medical qualifications in abundance — something that particularly comes in handy when reimagining the “Romeo and Juliet” death scene.)
Dever recalled the climactic scene — which is subverted to hilarious ends and took two days to film — as one of her favorite on-set experiences: “That whole scene, there’s just so many actors to cover and so much dialogue. I just find it sometimes so funny when there’s a bunch of actors in those kinds of costumes, [we] get together and [we’re] being all so dramatic. It was one of those days that if I wasn’t laughing, someone else was laughing. Bradley Whitford and Christopher McDonald were just always on fire with their comebacks and their ad libs,”She said that she also added that she “really appreciated”How “everyone really put 100% of their effort”It is a work of art.
Next up, Dever will appear as the daughter to Clooney and Roberts’ divorced couple in “Ticket to Paradise,”They travel to Bali to try to ruin her nuptials. This is exactly what happened a week later “Rosaline’s” release, it’ll mark the first major theatrical rom-com release for either star in over a decade.
“They’re both in the same fun, feel-good realm that I think everybody is looking for in movies right now,”Dever spoke highly of the films. “So it’s really exciting to be able to talk about both of these projects that I love so much, and getting to be in a movie with George Clooney and Julia Roberts is also not bad [laughs]. I love both of them so much and have looked up to them for so many years and I’m just so grateful I got to just be in scenes with them and act with them and learn from them.”
“Rosaline”Hulu is streaming it now
