-Now, I did not know this.
Beanie, a name given to you by your nanny.
Is that correct? -Yes.
-How´d it come about? -I had a nanny when I young.
My mom was working. And my given name is Elizabeth.
And she called me Elizabeanie,
´cause that´s a popular British nickname.
-Oh, okay. -And my brothers are much older.
They´re like, "Let´s just call her Beanie.
That´s so funny." And it totally stuck.
-Wow. -Yeah.
-So you had no decision in this at all?
-No, but everyone was like,
"At 10, you´ll want to be Elizabeth.
At 16" -- Everyone had a different age.
They were like, "You´re gonna outgrow it."
And I was like, "No." I love it.
-Oh, good. Well, that works out good.
So, your brother is Jonah Hill?
-Yes. -And he has been here before
and talked about your mother being a very funny character.
-Yes. -A wonderful mother as well.
But you stayed with her recently.
She made you stay with her while you were shooting this film.
-Yes. Sharon, Shea, as we call her.
She´s the best.
-The nanny -- Did the nanny give her Shea?
-No, I did. -Okay.
[ Laughter ]
She´s truly the best woman on planet Earth.
But she´s a character.
And I was basically told the day I stay in a hotel
over staying with her would be like the worst day of her life.
-Okay, gotcha.
-So when we were filming "Lady Bird,"
I was staying with my parents.
And I came home one day and she was
which is Yiddish for, like, screaming her face off.
-Okay, gotcha. -Turning purple, like --
And I hear it, and I´m, like, running into her office,
and she´s, like, screaming on the phone.
She´s like, "I am my dog´s advocate!
Okay?"
She´s -- I´m like, "What´s going on?"
I realize she´s talking to the vet.
[ Laughter ] And she´s like --
She´s like, "My dog can´t speak English!
My dog can´t tell you when he´s upset, so I speak for him."
She´s screaming. [ Laughter ]
And I´m like, "What is going on?"
She hangs up. I´m like, "What´s going on?"
She´s like, "I´m mad at the vet."
And just, like, walks out of the room. I´m like, "What?"
The next day, my parents get a registered letter,
which is like one step under getting served, right?
-Yeah. [ Light laughter ]
-Like, it´s basically getting served.
-In this day, if it´s too much for an e-mail,
that´s a huge deal. -Exactly.
[ Laughter ] You have to sign for it, okay?
So they get a registered letter to our house
that says in not so many words
that my parents are never welcome at the vet ever again.
-And we have the letter -- and this is my favorite thing,
´cause it´s so clearly from the vet,
´cause at the end it says,
"If your next veterinarian has any questions
regarding Brewski´s care."
[ Laughter ] "Please" --
-"You have made it impossible
for the doctors and staff here to communicate with you."
-That´s the best. [ Laughter ]
I mean, also, like, I have to assume
the vet doesn´t know how to do that.
I feel like they talk and they´re like,
"What should we do?" And they´re like,
"I think there´s a thing, like, in the legal profession
where you send a registered letter?"
-Exactly. "I think that we´re able to do that."
-Yeah. Oh, my God. That´s really, really great.
So this -- tell us about the part you play.
Because you are -- you´re a student in a Catholic school.
As we can tell from the clip. -Yes. Yes.
-Did you have any background in that?
-Certainly not. Feldstein -- quite Jewish.
-Yeah, right. [ Laughter ]
Yeah,
that you heard a lot in Catholic schools.
-Exactly. And it was amazing, because I learned so much.
Saoirse, she´s not American, but she is Catholic.
Or she was raised Catholic.
And so she was teaching me the Hail Mary
and I was teaching her the pledge of allegiance.
-Oh, perfect. -Because we had, like,
all of these classroom scenes
where we had to do both of those things.
And I was like, "Okay, ´I pledge allegiance.´"
She was like, "Hail Mary, full of grace."
I was like, "Okay, okay."
Sort of feeding each other lines back and forth. Yeah.
-And what drew you to the part you play in this?
-I love this movie so much.
Greta Gerwig is a genius. -She´s wonderful.
-And she wrote the most amazing script.
And it said -- when I got the script,
it said Julie, 17, chubby,
gets the lead in her high school musical.
And I was like, "Excuse me?" [ Laughter ]
"Sounds great."
It just felt like such a perfect fit.
And the story of a young girl.
We just don´t have enough of these
complicated female roles and female movies
and specifically Julie just, like,
felt like a very good fit for me.
-So you´re on Broadway right now.
You´re doing "Hello, Dolly!" with Bette Midler.
You also -- You went to theater camp.
You knew you wanted to do this for a long time.
-Yes. -What´s it called, Stagedoor?
-Stagedoor Manor. -Stagedoor Manor.
And you -- Is that where you meet Ben Platt?
-That´s not where I met Ben Platt.
-Okay, gotcha.
-Ben and I have been best friends --
We met at a bat mitzvah, actually.
-Okay, gotcha.
-Of course. -A Catholic bat mitzvah?
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, of course.
I was wearing my uniform that I wear in the film.
-Okay, gotcha. It would be really funny
to do a Catholic-themed bat mitzvah.
[ Laughter ] -I´m in. I´m so in.
No, of course, Ben and I both had, like,
theater-themed bar mitzvah and bat mitzvahs.
-Gotcha. -But we met at a bat mitzvah,
and this was before cellphones.
So we didn´t have any way to, like, stay in touch.
He joined my school in 9th grade
and we instantly became best friends.
And sort of the way that, like, he knew we were best friends
was like the second week of school.
He got his braces off and he texted me, like,
"I got my braces off."
And I left my class to come see his teeth.
[ Laughter ]
And I´m such a goodie-goodie and I love school.
So he was like, "I must mean a lot to you
because you left to see my teeth."
-What did the teacher say when you just got up and left?
-I mean, I think I was like, "I have to pee," or something.
[ Laughter ] I played it off, Seth.
Obviously I played it off. -Okay, gotcha.
Good, because you´re so successfully now,
I can´t believe you just would have burned down high school
to see a pair of teeth.
Well, thank you so much for being here.
Congrats on the film.
-Oh, my gosh, I´m so honored. Truly.
-Such a pleasure to have you here.