-Hi, Kaitlyn!
-Hello, Jimmy!
-Nice to meet you over Zoom.
-I know. It's so nice to meet you.
This is so cool. This is so cool for me.
I've been a huge fan of yours for a long time.
So this is insane.
-This is rad. I'm a fan of yours as well.
I know you're busy prepping for
the film version of "Dear Evan Hansen."
-I can't even tell you, Jimmy.
I literally cannot describe to you how excited I am.
I think I've only had like three musical auditions
in my whole life, and "Evan Hansen" was one of them.
So it feels insane that I'm going to be a part of that.
I've always wanted to do a musical.
-How did the other two auditions go?
Not so good?
-Well, not so good, but they were okay.
-I had the worst audition ever in the history of the business.
I auditioned to be on Broadway to be Frankenstein.
-On Broadway? -Dude, it was --
I'll never forget it. Honestly I'm getting --
I'm about to vomit right now because I remember going to
an apartment -- I'm not going to say the casting dir--
you know, who was casting me, but the piano player was there,
and I go, "I'm just going to sing 'Puttin' on the Ritz.'"
I go, "Yeah, I can do it." ♪ If you're blue and you ♪
I go, "Got it."
I get there. They go, "Yeah, we don't want to hear that song.
We want to hear this new song."
I'm like, "Oh, here's where I get busted
because I'm not a real actor or a singer."
And it was so bad.
Everyone felt so bad in the room. It was awful.
And I remember, I was so embarrassed when I went home.
It was cold. It was like December,
and there was steam coming off of my body.
[ Laughs ] That's how embarrassed I was.
It's like a block of --
-[ Laughs ] My other musical audition,
that's exactly the same thing that happened to me.
They're like, "Oh, yeah, no, you're singing in the wrong key.
It's actually several keys higher than what
you have come in to sing."
So it was like, "Oh, great, I don't have that prepared."
-Well, I mean, you're in a band with your sister Mady.
And you're called -- Is it Beulahbelle?
-Yes.
-You just released a new song, "Being You."
I just heard it. It's awesome.
Congrats on that. -Thanks, Jimmy.
-But that wasn't your first band with your sister apparently.
-It was not. -Yeah.
-We used to be called Hot Pink, which I think is a great name,
and I don't know why we changed it.
-This is bizarre, but we actually talked to some people
and we actually got some unseen footage
from an early performance of yours.
This is -- Check out you on guitar. This is pretty awesome.
♪♪
Oh, my gosh.
♪♪
-Oh, my gosh!
-The commitment I had to -- I think I remember telling myself,
"I need to get down on my knees and really get into it,"
and then I quickly got up.
I was not down on the ground.
[ Laughing ] I got up so fast.
-You rocked. That is one of the coolest things.
Hey, I want to talk about your projects
because you have so many besides "Dear Evan Hansen."
You have a movie out now on HBO and HBO Max
called "Coastal Elites."
How did you get involved with that?
-I got a call from Jay Roach, who's the director,
and sent me the script, and he asked me
to play the role of the nurse.
So, there's five separate monologues of all of
these different characters sort of, like, talking about
their frustration about the current state of the world,
and he asked me to be in it with Bette and Dan Levy
and Sarah Paulson and Issa, and I was just sort of like,
"Are you sure? This is a lot of pressure."
But it was really incredible
to be able to shoot something in quarantine. It was wild.
-It's really a cool thing to watch. It's great.
You also have a new series on Hulu called "Monsterland."
It premieres tomorrow.
How would you describe this one?
-Yeah, "Monsterland" sort of follows several characters
that are -- we follow sort of these broken and troubled people
who are forced to sort of cope with the darkest parts
of themselves, and I play a young girl named Toni
who is a mother to a 4-year-old girl.
And she is also trying to cope with just, you know --
my character is just trying to cope with
her inner monster as well,
and it was the first time I have ever played a mom in my life.
And it was also the first time I did a Cajun French accent,
which is as difficult as it sounds.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-Well, you knocked it out of the park. I want to show a clip.
Here's Kaitlyn Dever in "Monsterland."
Take a look at this.
-My name is Alex.
-Where you from, Alex?
-Uh, nearby.
-You lyin' already.
-Why do you assume that I'm lying?
-Cause you ain't talkin' flat.
Folks around here sound like they filed the letter G
from the damn alphabet.
-I'm here doing a job.
-Offshore? -Mm-hmm.
-Then you better heal up and get a straight story
'cause trouble don't make pay date.
-Well...
I'm no trouble.
-Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Sheba.
-My thanks to Kaitlyn Dever.
"Coastal Elites" is on HBO and HBO Max now.
And "Monsterland" premieres on Hulu tomorrow.
Thank you so much again for coming on, Kaitlyn.
I appreciate it. -Thank you, Jimmy.
Thanks for having me. This was awesome.