Kaitlyn Dever on Taking on Two Complex, Anguished Characters Back-to-Back With ‘Apple Cider Vinegar,’ ‘The Last of Us’
For Kaitlyn Dever, starring in both Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar and HBO’s The Last of Us was deeply personal.
The former tells the story of wellness influencer Belle Gibson, who told her Instagram followers that she was using alternative medicine to treat her terminal cancer — a cancer she never had. “I read the scripts and was absolutely infuriated by her story,” Dever tells THR. But for the 28-year-old, Gibson’s scheme hit closer to home. Dever became obsessed with alternative therapies after her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. “[This project] was very timely for me because I started going down that nonconventional road [for my mom],” she explains. “I became obsessed with it, consuming all of my time when I wasn’t working or I wasn’t with my family. … I felt very alone in this journey, and to get a script that was so powerful and compelling was deeply personal to me.”
Even though Dever felt a “duty” to take on the role, she still had some trepidation. Ultimately, it was her mom who pushed her to do it.
“What this show touches on is that you have to be your own advocate, and that’s what my mom had to do many times, and that’s something I’m very passionate about,” Dever says. “My mom got to read the scripts, too, and she was like, ‘You have to do this,’ because there was a moment that I thought about not doing it — that was the first time I’d ever considered that for any job in my life. I didn’t want to leave my mom. It was during a pretty critical part of her health journey, and I didn’t want to be somewhere if something bad did happen. I was home when she did pass [in February 2024]. I was doing it for her because she was so excited about it.”
Watching it back since its release in February has been triggering for the actress, but she’s nonetheless proud of the project. Dever’s performance in the series, which also highlights the dangers of social media, has been lauded by critics, especially for her accurate Australian accent.
“I was freaking out about it!” Dever says when asked about her preparation. “I put [the show and this role] on such a high pedestal that I had no other choice but to give it everything I had. I surrounded myself with the accent to really embed it into my body, and it really — this sounds weird — started to live in my mouth. … I was definitely nervous to be the only American on this job because all I could think of was, ‘They’re going to hear every mistake and they’re going to be silently judging me.’ “
Working with her dialect coach Jenny Kent, she watched Love Island Australia and the Australian news and would “shout the dialogue” in her apartment to practice the accent.
Was she equally trepidatious taking on the role as Abby in the second season of The Last of Us, given what the character’s storyline was in the video game on which the show is based? Dever says no.
“I knew what she did, and I knew a lot about it before signing on, and that was in no way going to stop me from playing her because I knew at the end of the day she was a really complex and nuanced person,” she explains.
It also was a reunion for Dever with co-creator Neil Druckmann, given Dever initially had meetings with him to potentially star as Ellie in a Last of Us movie that never happened. “I never officially had the role, and I never get attached to projects, but I always had The Last of Us in the back of my head. So when it came back into my life, I thought it was just meant to be.”
In the show’s second season, Abby — spoiler alert — tracks down Joel (Pedro Pascal) because he murdered her father during a mission to save Ellie from the Fireflies. What culminates is a brutal, vengeful killing of Joel — a moment that video game lovers had dreaded and that shocked new fans of the show.
“When I was actually starting to develop the character, I realized, if you look at all these characters, Abby’s not that different from a lot of the other characters in that world,” Dever says of her thought process. “I focused on, what was the main focus of her emotional journey and how calculated she has been about this plan for five years, and how it’s really broken and riddled her with grief. That makes her physically intimidating.”
Preparing for the big scene in which she tortures Joel while Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is watching meant setting some mental groundwork.
“At the end of the day, I had to think about how sad she is. All she wants is to have this person back in her life,” she says. “Grief is such an awful feeling, and you just want that feeling to go away so badly when you’re in the middle of it, and you’d do anything to not feel that way anymore.”
Pascal was a great scene partner, she says, and that support continued after the episode’s premiere, when he posted BTS photos to seemingly remind fans that Abby is a character in a fictional world and doesn’t reflect Dever as a person.
“I’ve never felt so carried by another actor in my life,” she says about Pascal. “I felt like we were really supporting each other and it was such a pivotal moment for both of these characters, really.”
What’s more, Dever had to film that scene a few days after her mom’s funeral. “I wasn’t able to do my final fitting or hair and makeup test, and all of the cast and crew showed up to support me. Everyone treated me with such kindness and gave me such grace during that time,” she says.
Episode two also sees Dever hauling herself down a mountain and getting crushed by a fence topped with the infected. “The whole fence thing was very real,” says Dever. “The fence was coming down and there were a bunch of people piling on it, and [the crew was] like, ‘We rigged this fence so it’s not going to crush you,’ but there was a level of claustrophobia. There was no CGI there,” she adds, crediting her stunt double as well.
The temperatures during filming were frigid, and one scene allowed only 10 people on top of the mountain, which they had to climb up, to shoot. “We had to wear avalanche trackers on our bodies,” says Dever.
Season three will focus on Abby’s story. “That’s all I know about what’s going to happen,” says Dever. “Craig [Mazin, showrunner] just keeps saying to me, ‘You have no idea what’s to come for season three. Just buckle up.’ “
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
