At just 17, actress Kaitlyn Dever’s resume is long enough to make a Penn student jealous. Since 2011, she’s played Tim Allen’s daughter on “Last Man Standing.” In theatres, she stars alongside Ansel Elgort in “Men, Women, & Children,” and last week, her newest role as Misty in “Laggies” screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival and opened nationwide. According to “ELLE,” she’s one of the eight young women poised to take over Hollywood, but Kaitlyn doesn’t think of herself as a breakout star. “I’m just doing what I love, you know?” she says.
Jason Reitman’s drama “Men, Women & Children” takes on the internet at a time when most people Kaitlyn’s age can’t get enough of it. She plays Brandy Beltmeyer, a high school student whose mother (Jennifer Garner) monitors her internet activity, reading her messages and deleting them before Brandy has seen them. To many, the film critiques social media and its role in society. According to Kaitlyn, however, “I don’t think Jason [Reitman] wanted to show that social media was a bad thing. I think he definitely just wanted to tell a true and honest story about what's going on in the world right now, and how humans are connecting with each other, and how they're connecting with each other online.”
Unlike many of the characters in “Men, Women, & Children,” Kaitlyn isn’t tied to her iPhone or her laptop. Her character Brandy isn’t either, so “I feel like that’s how I can relate to [her],” Kaitlyn says.
Instead, she’ll be heading to auditions and hitting theater screens. “I’ve played a troubled teen, I’ve played a regular teen, I’ve done a lot of comedy, I’ve done some dramatic stuff,” she says. “I want to stick to more films, and just find really great scripts and really great characters that would be different and challenging.”
