School is almost out, and soon Booksmart will be in theaters. Leading up to the comedy’s release, on May 24, Teen Vogue has an exclusive first look at some photos from the film, paired with interviews with the movie’s stars.
About a third of the way through Booksmart, Billie Lourd’s character, Gigi, launches herself off a yacht and into the dark, dirty waters of a Los Angeles marina. The actor was itching to do the stunt herself, but she was ultimately convinced to let the professionals take care of the aquatic acrobats.
“They came up to me, and they were like, ‘Really? If you do this, you will have to plug every single one of your holes in your body because the water is so filthy. You do not want to do this,’” Billie tells Teen Vogue. “I was kind of bummed, but then I was like, ‘I don't want to get whatever disease is in the marina water, so I'm going to let these professional cliff divers do it.’ And I was profusely thanking them all night because I knew what they were getting into. They were so amazing. One of them did a flip, and then the other one that made the movie kind of fell over and did a belly flop. I felt so bad, I hugged her after and was like, ‘Thank you so much, that was hilarious, but it must have been painful.’”
The scene is just one of many that had audiences guffawing loudly during the screening of the teen coming-of-age comedy directed by Olivia Wilde. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever star as BFFs Molly and Amy, who spent most of their high school days working hard to get into prestigious universities. But when they find out that all their peers who party also got into good schools, they decide to have one final night of peak debauchery.
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The film also includes a slew of other young actors, including Molly Gordon, Diana Silvers, Noah Galvin, and Austin Crute. Billie's character, the over-the-top Gigi, is a fashionable oddball–meets–extraterrestrial being with a proclivity for wearing furry bucket hats (“I stole [one] from set and got like multiple emails, ‘Where's the Kangol hat?’ And I was like, ‘I don't know where it went.’ Low key it's on my head," Billie says), and who got into Harvard but laments that it isn’t her first choice. Billie has proved her acting chops as Chanel No. 3 in the campy cult favorite Scream Queens, and as Supreme Mallory, who saves the world from the Antichrist in Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story: Apocalypse. The 26-year-old actor goes to new wacky depths as Gigi.
“When I was in the [audition] room Olivia [Wilde] actually brought up Courtney Love, who, you know, with my weird childhood, I kind of grew up with,” Billie, whose mother is the late actor Carrie Fisher, says about her inspiration for Gigi. “So I did a lot of Courtney channeling and I also mixed a little Cher in there because I'm obsessed with Cher, then just mixed my personality into it.”
The confluence of all these women clearly charmed Olivia and casting director Allison Jones, because Billie recounts her audition process as being hilarious, albeit somewhat of a “disaster.” She says that she forgot a bunch of her lines and basically reverted to doing makeshift standup, but Olivia and Allison were supportive and laughing along with the actor. Billie eventually nailed her scene on the fourth try, but she called her dad afterward to tell him about making a fool of herself. She was offered the role soon after.
Throughout the film’s press tour, it’s clear how much the cast members loved making the movie together. Billie even describes it as similar to being “at a high school party for six weeks.” With Olivia at the movie's helm, Billie can’t stop gushing about the experience of working with the former House actor in her directorial debut.
“She is just a dream, and was one of the best directors I have ever worked with because it's so effective to work with a director that was an actor, because she really gets in the trenches with you,” she says. “If she had an idea, she would show me herself, which made me even more comfortable to do the most insane things, because she was doing them with me. I want to grow up to be her in every sense of the word.”
Beyond yacht jumping, condom-water-balloon fights, and other wild antics in Booksmart, there’s plenty of heart at the center. It’s very much about the two main characters forging their own paths and identities while still treasuring friendship. And it might be cliché, but it’s not always the smartest move to judge a book by its cover.
“I wish I had this movie when I was in high school. The amazing thing about it is, it shows that every single person has layers. If you are a party girl, you might be smart. If you're a smart girl, you might party. If you are a nerd, you might actually be really cool behind the scenes. This film just captures that so well,” Billie says. “In high school, I got voted most edgy and most likely to be on the cover of a tabloid. That was not who I was, but that was who people assumed I was just because of who my mom was and what they knew about me on paper. But low key, I worked my ass off and loved school. I was obsessed with studying and was really honestly book smart — but people assumed [things about me] because they didn't really get to know me. Maybe if this movie had existed, they would have asked a few more questions.”
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As the Booksmart characters head off to college at the close of the movie, we were curious about what Billie thought Gigi would be up to freshman year. And especially what she thought would go down if Gigi were to encounter a fellow student like Chanel No. 3. While Billie notes that both characters are fairly similar in the sense that they’re both “real and raw,” she says Chanel’s a bit less welcoming than the compassionate Gigi.
“I mean I love Chanel, she was hilarious, but she was a b*tch, and you don't really need to be like that. I don't think Gigi would put up with it,” she says. “They would probably kill each other with some faux fur. It would be a really chic death.”
Related: Billie Lourd Says American Horror Story Saved Her Life
