Pure Imagination
Kaitlyn Dever is one of the most talented actors of her generation, a consummate professional when it comes to playing pretend. Courtney Thompson speaks to the star about portraying wellness fraudster Belle Gibson, personal grief and the unexpected virtues of 'Love Island Australia'
PHOTOGRAPHY by SYLVÈ COLLESS
STYLING by ANNALIESE DOIG
Kaitlyn Dever does an uncanny Australian accent. Notoriously tricky to nail, especially for Americans, Dever’s is so believable that you’d think she grew up on the outskirts of Launceston. How? I ask her, as we sit in a sun-drenched studio, Dever dressed in a chic black-and-white Miu Miu set, shoes off, legs tucked underneath her. “Can I say Love Island Australia?” the 28-year-old asks with a laugh. It was a bit of that, plus a dialect coach, and she probably picked up on a few quirks from locals during her time in Melbourne in 2023. “Shout out to Napier Quarter – I was obsessed with that place,” she enthuses. “They have really great wine and I would go run my lines there. I also loved going to Sense of Self bathhouse.”
Dever’s flawless accent was necessary for her starring role in new Netflix series Apple Cider Vinegar. In it, she plays the notorious Australian fraudster Belle Gibson, who built a wellness empire on a very tall lie. Gibson amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, launched an app and wrote a book all rooted in her false claim that she successfully treated terminal brain cancer through diet and alternative therapies. The show – “a true-ish story based on a lie” – sits neatly at the intersection of the wellness industry, social media and the cultural figure of the girlboss that all came to the forefront in the early 2010s.
The project and its subject matter was deeply personal for Dever. “Not to get too dark about things,” she starts, “but my mum passed away last year from stage four breast cancer.” When she received the script, Dever was elbow deep in researching the world of holistic health and wellness for her mum. “I was literally in the thick of reading all kinds of books and looking at all kinds of things – down to the properties of broccoli sprouts that are anti-cancer.” So when she read Apple Cider Vinegar, it felt surreal to say the least. “I was like, ‘Whoa, we’re talking about cancer care and, like, coffee enemas. I know so much about this.’” Her mum encouraged her to do the project.
Above: CHRISTOPHER ESBER top, $850. PRADA briefs, POA.
CHARLES & KEITH earrings, $46. Right: ZIMMERMANN jacket, $1150, and dress, $3250. MAX MARA shoes, $720.
“When I left to [film], she wasn’t well,” recalls Dever. “But she thought this project was so cool and there was never a chance that she would have not allowed me to go to Australia and do this. So I did it for her in so many ways.” Kathy Dever passed away in February 2024, not long after production on Apple Cider Vinegar wrapped.
In the series, Belle’s rival is Milla Blake. Played by Alycia Debnam-Carey, she seems to be based on Jessica Ainscough, the real-life ‘Wellness Warrior’ who was diagnosed with a rare epithelioid sarcoma and tragically passed away in 2015. After her diagnosis, Milla refuses chemo and starts a blog to document her journey through the world of holistic health – mainly a lot of juices and coffee enemas – which Belle becomes so obsessed with, she begins to replicate. The key difference being: Milla actually has cancer. One of the grounding elements of the series is the relationship between Milla and her mum (Susie Porter), who Milla puts onto a similar regimen when she’s diagnosed with bowel cancer. “I thought it was so moving that Sam [Strauss, the show creator and writer] was shedding light on that kind of relationship and on that kind of... what’s the word I’m looking for?” Dever pauses. “Just, I guess, desperation that people are sometimes faced with, because sometimes it’s not just a simple stage one cancer that you can treat with chemotherapy and radiation to the direct spots. Sometimes it’s complicated.”
Though Dever is clear: her interest in wellness as it intersects with medicine isn’t about mistrust in the science or system. “[My mum’s] oncologist is a brilliant man and kept her alive,” she says adamantly. “I mean, stage four is... it’s very rare to be able to say someone survived stage four for 15 years. That’s really extraordinary, honestly. And she was able to do that, I truly believe, because of all the different conventional treatments she was doing. There was a brand new chemo for her to try every other year, basically. And so, it was never because we didn’t believe in the system. It was just like, ‘Oh, there’s not a lot of
options left. And so what are the other options out there?’”
Above: TOD’S top, $2630, pants, $1410, and shoes, $1670. Right: MIU MIU top, $3600, briefs, $1550, skirt, $6100, and gloves, POA.
Dever grew up in Texas and Los Angeles, the eldest of three girls. Her parents were ice-skating coaches and enrolled her in acting classes aged nine; she realised her ambition after watching The Sixth Sense – or more specifically, Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense. “She just seemed like a real person to me,” recalls Dever. “The movie was so scary, but I think I was so focused on the emotion that she gives in that story, I’ll never forget.” It didn’t take long before she was booking ads and then landing a role on the long-running Tim Allen sitcom Last Man Standing when she was 14. The series ran for nine seasons, but her breakthrough really came in 2019 when she starred opposite Beanie Feldstein in Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart. Beloved by audiences and critics, it came just after she starred with another rising star, Timothée Chalamet, in Beautiful Boy and kickstarted a stellar run of projects. There was the critically acclaimed Netflix drama Unbelievable (with Collette herself), for which Dever received a Golden Globe nomination, the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen, the opioid drama Dopesick, which landed Dever another Golden Globe nomination and her first Emmy nod, then a romantic comedy with George Clooney and Julia Roberts, Ticket to Paradise. Last year, she joined Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey to film the second season of cult post-apocalyptic
drama The Last of Us, dropping later this year.
Dever is committed to her work. To play Gibson, she used a method she devised on Dopesick to keep up with her character’s emotional state: meticulously tracking it via spreadsheet. “My sister helped me make it,” she explains. “Everyone on set was making fun of me because I had these manila folders for each episode. Each folder had the script and the spreadsheet for that episode. And when I’d finish a scene, I’d cross it out and highlight the ones that were left and make notes of what I ended up actually doing on that day.” Awed at the organisation of it all, I ask if she identifies as a Type A. “No! That’s so funny,” she laughs. “Actually, I sent Beanie a video the other day about how every Type A friend has a Type B friend because on the Booksmart press tour, she always knew exactly where we needed to be and when, and I was always forgetting things.”
According to her co-stars, Dever is a rare breed of actor who is both great at her work and to work with. “Despite the crazy schedule that Kaitlyn was working, she was always showing up with the most kindness,” says Apple Cider Vinegar co-star Aisha Dee. “I really admire that, especially when it comes to treating people that way across the board – not picking and choosing who you think is important enough to treat kindly.” Adds Debnam-Carey: “Her work ethic is extraordinary.”
Like a compass that keeps finding north, our conversation winds its way back to Kathy. Dever says her mum’s passing was a tectonic shift that transformed the topography of her whole world. “It’s just a hole in my life now,” she says. “What she brought to my life was so much excitement and so much support, which I’m so grateful for. But now that’s missing from my life. I don’t get to share my career with her anymore. And I’m now realising that was such a big part of why I wanted to do it. And I have to find a way to push through that and still find meaning in it because I still love it so much. I’ve loved playing different people since I was nine years old, putting on plays for my parents, and I think that, moving forward, it’s going to constantly evolve.
“My mum was always saying, ‘You should go have fun, you should go have fun.’ So I just want to really try to continue to find the fun in life for her.”◼
Apple Cider Vinegar is streaming now on Netflix.
Not Your Mother's It-Bag
The icons and classics will always have their place, but the time is ripe for pieces that signal personal style over status, writes Noni Reginato
Sliving
Paris Hilton was the hotel heiress branded famous for doing nothing. But, as Kathryn Madden writes, staying relevant for two decades and building a glittering pink empire that’s surpassed $6 billion in revenue? That's hot.
The New Romantics
Faerie sex. Cowboy flings. Love on the ice rink. Romance novels have been reinvigorated and, more than just a frivolous pleasure, the genre is propping up book markets globally. We joined a romance-only book club to talk sentimentality, smut and shadow daddies.