Olivia Wilde Reveals Her Favorite Booksmart Scenes

The beautiful cast of Booksmart. Young Hollywood. You guys have a big movie premiere tonight.

Yeah, we do.

Olivia, are you are you nervous? Are you excited?

I am the most excited and the most nervous I've ever been in my life.

Your first directing feature film.

First feature film. Yeah. Big deal, big deal.

Well, what was like that responsibility on set?

Oh my gosh, it was an enormous responsibility but such a thrill and so exciting because we had the most amazing cast and I was making the movie I not only wanted to see but had always wanted to be in. But then I got to create it for other people and it was really amazing and I got to do with my very good friend Katie who wrote and produced the film. And I'm very very excited that we get to be here together.

Katie, can you break down what the film is about?

Yeah, it's about uh two best friends in high school, Molly and Amy, who have prioritized their future. They're very secure with the fact that they didn't want to party in high school because they wanted to focus on academics and the night before graduation, their world is rocked by some new information that they may not know as much as they thought they did about all their classmates. And so they're determined to on that last night, go out and rewrite their stories and uh change the way that they've lived their high school lives.

Oh, look at you. You've done this before. So it's essentially them trying to catch up to four years of high school that they missed out. Essentially. Is that right? What kind of high school experience did you guys have?

I think I had too much fun in high school. I'm the opposite in a way. Actually, it's interesting, like, this movie's all about proving that you are more than just one thing. I had a lot of fun in high school but I was also really smart and I really love books and I love to learn. So in the way that these girls are so smart but they have to prove that they're fun, I had sort of the opposite journey.

I I'm very much like Amy and I think I stayed that way through the course of of high school. And if I had seen Booksmart, or if there was a Booksmart for my time, I probably would have been able to realize you can work hard and play hard, but I'm realizing that now, though.

Balance, balance. You realize balance later. You got a movie premiere birthday.

Yes. Yes. Women's International Day was just two days ago. I know, isn't that crazy? I plan to have a lot of fun and celebrate the hard work all these amazing women did and and then yeah, have a dance party. We have Santigold playing at our afterparty. We are very lucky people.

I heard you guys actually lived together. You made them live together?

I didn't make them. I forced them. I encouraged it. And they were the coolest roommates ever.

Organically. We were the three of us were at lunch. It was the first day that Kaitlyn and I had met and Liv was like, wouldn't it be crazy if you lived together? And we were like, That would be crazy. And then we kind of locked eyes and we're like, Can we do that? Um and we made it, you know, Anna partner made it happen. And Kaitlyn and I lived together from like prep through the shoot. So it was like two months, basically. It was funny cuz Kaitlyn, I was your first roommate. I remember you telling me that. I've never had a roommate before. No, I've never lived with anybody. she was my other than my sister is my fam. But yeah, she's my first ever roommate. I was like, I'm honored. But we had we had so much fun. And I we also shot almost exclusively nights. Okay. So we were on this little like Sorry. Um and I'm not fun and I'm a greymos. I was like, I'm so tired. Um but we were on this little like time zone like little we were in our own little world.

Yeah, eating pancakes at 2:00 PM.

Exactly. You guys never like any any fights?

Never any fights. No, in fact, there's there's a scene in the movie where things get very tense between them and they had to force themselves not to speak for a couple days to create some distance. It was the only scene that we didn't run before we did it. Like we would run lines and rehearse. And that was the only scene that we didn't. So I um ran that scene with my mom, which was such an experience if you've ever met my mom, she was like, Molly, I'm so mad at you. I was like, Oh my god. And I did it on set. It was like Kaitlyn giving the most extraordinary performance. And I was like, this is a different vibe. Very different.

And then lastly, what was your guys's favorite scene to shoot?

Oh my gosh. Uh, wow. That's that's really tough. I have so many. I I I'm going to throw a few at you. One is Billy plays GG, who is a character who is so fun and so wild and so fearless. And her character's introduction was probably the coolest thing that I've shot in a while and she was in slow motion window surfing. When Billy enters this movie, it's like now this movie begins. It's pretty exciting. Yeah, so it's a pretty epic moment. And another favorite scene I think was the last it's the last scene in the film and it's an amazing scene between uh Beanie and Kaitlyn, Molly and Amy, where they're going through a lot and we had a very little time to shoot and I was just blown away by their ability to focus and bring the thunder, like real performances under intense pressure. And I was in awe. I was like, how are these girls so effing funny and also can just bring these performances out of nowhere? I was amazed.

Is there going to be tears? Are we going to cry?

There will be tears. We'll make you laugh and we'll make you cry.

All right, guys, thank you for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of South by.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.