Kaitlyn Dever moved to Los Angeles from Dallas with her family in 2011, soon after being cast in the television crime series Justified. She was 13. In no time, Hollywood took notice of her raw talent. Challenging and treacherous roles followed.
In Short Term 12 she played a sexually abused teenager who tries to relieve her pain by self-cutting. A few years later she could be seen playing a drug-addicted friend of Nic Sheff in Beautiful Boy (2018), starring Timothée Chalamet. Her breakout role was as Amy, best friend of raucous Molly in the comedy Booksmart (2019), directed by Olivia Wilde. When the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press interviewed her, Dever said: “We’ve never seen a best friendship like this before on screen, a straight girl and a queer girl together having honest and real conversations. But we didn’t want Amy’s sexuality to be her defining characteristic. The great thing about this generation is that you can be whatever you want to be and no one cares anymore. You’re not going to be judged for it.” Regarding the hilarious clay animation drug trip scene, she clarified: “That was Molly and Amy’s worst nightmare, to be Barbie Dolls with small waists and big boobs!”
In 2019 Dever was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actress for the television miniseries Unbelievable, where she portrayed a teenager accused of lying about having been raped. This year she is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her significant effort in the miniseries Dopesick, with a script based on the 2018 book by Beth Macy Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America. She played the composite character of Betsy, a mine worker in Richmond, Virginia in 1996 who was prescribed OxyContin by her trusted family doctor (Michael Keaton). Again, she was a gay woman in a love relationship that should not be revealed to her conservative family and planned to leave town to start a new life with her girlfriend. The actress was grateful to see queer representation on television and felt especially heartbroken by the injustices seen in an opioid crisis that made so many victims.
In the TV special Coastal Elites (2020) Dever played a hospital nurse taking care of COVID 19 patients during the current health crisis. She said to the HFPA: “It’s so tragic. These first responders, healthcare workers, doctors and nurses are going through hell every single day, saving lives. They are putting their own lives at stake for other people, they are our real-life heroes.”
As for new developments in her burgeoning career, Kaitlyn confessed to being excited about being cast in Dear Evan Hansen (2021) alongside Ben Platt and Amy Adams. “I had always wanted to do a musical my entire life,” she stated. In the role of Zoe Murphy, sister of the boy who had committed suicide, Dever revisited some of the anxieties and fears experienced in high school. Still, she felt inspired by the resilience of this strong girl.
Kaitlyn Dever’s parents were figure skaters who have been together since they were teenagers. She grew up surrounded by music. Singing was encouraged. Speaking of that, she plays in a band called Beulahbelle. Young sister Mady is a bandmate. Their 2020 debut single was titled “Raleigh.” Little sister Jane, 17, taught them how to use Tik Tok during the recent lockdown. “I like to use my social media platform to spread the word on important causes like the Black Lives Matter movement. But I also use my Instagram for posting funny Tik Tok videos of my sisters. So, I try not to take it too seriously.” Talented beyond her young years, we look forward to checking Ticket to Paradise, the romantic comedy she filmed in Australia with George Clooney and Julia Roberts.