Beanie Feldstein opened up about her sexuality for the first time when discussing the importance of her movie Booksmart
Beanie Feldstein is glad a movie like Booksmart exists to help young girls feel more accepted.
The Lady Bird actress, 25, stars as one half of a friend duo who decide to go wild their last week of high school after getting into the colleges of their dreams
The movie, which marks the directorial debut of Olivia Wilde and recently premiered at SXSW, held a panel at the Austin-based festival where Feldstein opened up for the first time about her sexuality. The topic came up while discussing how the film doesn’t make a big deal about Kaitlyn Dever’s character Amy being gay.
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“It was completely meaningful for me to watch the film. My partner is a woman,” Feldstein said, according to Page Six. “There’s a love scene between two girls and they’re fumbling with their sneakers and they can’t get their jeans off. All of those moments, they make me tear up because representation is really important. Also, Kaitlyn’s character is not the only gay character in the film. So there you go, what an incredible thing our film is doing. I think if I could have seen our film earlier, I would have found myself a bit sooner.”
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The movie’s screenwriter Katie Silberman, who also wrote Netflix’s Set It Up, explained the importance of not making Amy’s sexuality her main identity trait.
“Our friends who identify as queer, it’s like the fifth thing you would mention about them, if not the fifteenth. It’s never the first thing you would mention about them in real life,” she said, as reported by Page Six. I think it was exciting to be able to make a movie like that, it was one of many qualities, who knows down the line when it would be mentioned. It obviously infuses your life but it’s not the defining quality of your life when you’re with your best friend and there are so many other things going on.”
Booksmart, which is set for release on May 24, was screened for the first time at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin on Sunday. Immediately following its world premiere, critics were quick to call it a “masterpiece” and “bleepin’ fantastic.”
The teen comedy stars Dever and Feldstein as high school best friends who decide to live it up on their final night before graduation. The film also stars Lisa Kudrow, Billie Lourd, Will Forte and Wilde’s longtime partner Jason Sudeikis.