How to Build a Girl, the film based on Caitlyn Moran’s 2014 novel, debuted at Toronto International Film Festival last week and has already been met with rave reviews. Starring Beanie Feldstein in the leading role, the actor has now revealed what it takes to go from a Los Angeles starlet to a lonely, angsty Wolverhampton teen.
According to Beanie, perfecting the Wolverhampton accent was one of the biggest battles she faced in playing the protagonist, Johanna Morrigan. As an LA native, she knew she had to go to great lengths to develop the West Midlands slur, and so she moved to the town and began working in a local gift shop.
‘I had to speak in the accent the entire time I was working,’ she said, ‘And the first week I did not fool anybody! But then by the end of the second week with a little help from the girls I was working with - they would yell at me when I got something wrong - by the end of the week I felt much more comfortable.’
Who is Beanie Feldstein?
Beanie has previously made waves in Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart and Oscar-nominated Lady Bird, however this is her first lead role – something she found daunting having always played the best friend. ‘The few things I’ve been lucky enough to be in have always been friendship-based movies,’ she told the Los Angeles Times, ‘This is the story of a girl who doesn’t have friends and I felt that a lot when I was shooting I was like “I’m the only one on the call sheet today…where is my buddy?”, that’s a very new experience for me.’
What is How to Build a Girl about?
While fiction, How to Build a Girl is semi-autobiographical, based on the upbringing of Caitlyn whom herself has described growing up without friends. ‘I had no friends as a teenage girl and I remember time and time again every book that you read as a teenage girl, every TV show and film would always be like “having friends is the most important thing, if you’ve got friends you can get through anything” and I was like “but I don’t have any friends”… how do you manage on your own? This is the story of how you manage on your own.’
How to Build a Girl reviews:
‘The final product feels like if the greatest musician in the world tried to write a classic in 15 minutes,’ wrote Variety upon its release, ‘Yet, “How to a Build a Girl” dares to argue that reinventing yourself doesn’t make you a poseur – the lowest of all insults, especially in the mid-’90s, when the film is set. It’s a young person’s jam that will hit the right teen like a thunderbolt.’
How to Build a Girl release date:
According to NME{
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