Netflix’s pop-infused true crime series Apple Cider Vinegar asks a lot of its star, Kaitlyn Dever.
The hit show chronicles the rise and fall of Belle Gibson, the real-life Australian single mom who launched a wellness empire by convincing the world she was overcoming brain cancer with an all-natural lifestyle — “all of which would be incredibly inspiring… if it were true,” as Netflix’s official summary puts it.
For Apple Cider Vinegar‘s colorful twist on Gibson’s grift, Dever masters a regional Aussie accent and inhabits a staggering range of emotions, tracing the con-woman’s trajectory from an emotionally abused teen to an arch-manipulator brought to the brink. Along the way, she plots, seduces, fakes seizures, weathers humiliations, occasionally bursts into song, and suffers intense emotional highs and lows, both real and imagined — all while attempting to be a better mom to her young son.
Devers first displayed such versatility and virtuosity in her breakthrough performance alongside Beanie Feldstein in Olivia Wilde’s 2019 coming-of-age sleeper hit Booksmart. That same year, she distinguished herself again by playing a teenage sexual assault survivor in Netflix’s acclaimed crime mini-series Unbelievable.
Since its release two weeks ago, Apple Cider Vinegar‘s viewership on Netflix has soared. The series currently sits in third place on the streamer’s top-ten list of most-watched English-language shows of the week.
Dever says Apple Cider Vinegar’s themes were deeply personal and that performing in the show was therapeutic. The 28-year-old actress’ mother passed away last year after a 14-year struggle with breast cancer.
The Hollywood Reporter connected with Dever via Zoom to discuss how she came to grips with Gibson’s slippery persona and why she believes Apple Cider Vinegar ends on a hopeful note.
What were some of the keys to figuring out how you would play and portray Belle Gibson?
She’s a very complicated and nuanced character, so I was honestly just very grateful to be given the opportunity to dive into a role like this. It was interesting playing the type of person who is always altering herself to fit a certain group. That’s what Belle has been doing her whole life. One thing I was thinking a lot about is that she is a natural actress. She’s incredibly charming, and she can really turn it on to get what she wants. To get to the core of who she is — a person who’s very ruthless, determined, and quite a chameleon — I came to believe that she’s someone who craves community and love in a profound way.
This part certainly asks a lot of you as a performer. You cover such a range of emotions and modes of expression — from dancing to a Britney Spears song to going through intense meltdowns, bouts of ecstatic joy, pretending to suffer a violent seizure, to singing Katy Perry a cappella. And amidst it all, Belle is always selling, persuading or seducing. Among all the things that you were asked to do as this character, what aspects did you find most challenging?
Oh, man. I mean, there were many aspects that were challenging. We were constantly aware of the fact that we were creating a fictionalized version of Belle Gibson. But I guess I really wanted to bring authenticity to her — by uncovering her backstory and what she struggled with as a child and bringing some of that nuance to the character. It was such a challenge balancing the very fine line that we tow in the show — which is that line between comedy and dark, twisted moments, where you don’t know if you should really be laughing. I wanted to make sure that I was doing all sides of Belle justice. There are a lot of meltdowns and a lot of really emotional moments, but also a lot of really tender and sweet moments with her son — and some really complicated scenes with her husband, Clive. Like you said, she uses certain situations and certain people to her advantage to get what she wants. The challenge was just sort of balancing all of these complicated relationships and keeping track of where she was with everyone from moment to moment. I actually created a spreadsheet to make sure that I was keeping all of the emotional levels where she was in 2010 versus 2014. Because we do so much jumping back and forth between time periods in the show, it was really important for me to keep track of where she was emotionally throughout the timeline.
Kaitlyn Dever as Belle in Apple Cider Vinegar.
Courtesy of Netflix
Did you watch footage of the real Belle? If so, how did that inform your performance?
Going into it, yes, I did. There was not a whole lot of video footage of her for me to watch, but I studied what I could. There are two TV interviews that I looked at. They definitely did help me — but they influenced how I developed her character and brought my version of the persona to life. Again, part of what I really appreciated about the project was that it was always understood that we were doing a version of Belle, not attempting a perfect imitation. This was also something I discussed with my dialect coach, Jenny Kent. We didn’t want to do a full carbon copy of Belle’s accent and the way she speaks. We wanted to make a new version of her voice.
I’ve often heard actors talk about how they need to have empathy for the character they’re portraying in order to inhabit them, even if the character is a villain. With such a slippery character like Belle, I’m curious… Where did you feel like you could naturally connect with her, and where did you come up against, perhaps, the limits of what you could accept about this person you were playing? And how did you handle that?
Well, I’m someone who holds the wellness industry very close to my heart, and there were a lot of aspects of this story that were deeply personal to me. My mom passed away from breast cancer last year, and I kind of became obsessed with the non-conventional route — in addition to the conventional therapies my mom was already doing — just because, you know, there is a lot of hope in all of that.
For Belle, specifically, her lies were a horrible, terrible act. But I don’t think we’ll ever really know who the real Belle is. In the way we made the show, we’re sort of leaving that up to interpretation. But for me, Belle is someone who is broken and so desperate to be loved that she would do whatever it takes to get that. I think that she was really craving what she had always lacked in her life. Along the way, during shooting, I would constantly think about how much of this character is a cry for help. Those are the ways I found empathy for the character, I guess.
I wasn’t aware that you had such a personal connection to the themes and issues raised by the show. Are you comfortable talking about how your experiences with your mom informed your approach to the performance in other ways?
I mean, yeah. It even informed my decision to say yes to signing on to the show in the first place, because I knew so much about this subject already. Not about Belle Gibson’s story, specifically, but just about the wellness industry and its influence on people, especially through social media. I was definitely aware of all of that — maybe a little too aware — because I had been living it. I definitely became almost obsessed with wellness culture — just to be able to help my mom in any and every way that I could. The show was shot while she was alive. My mom actually read the scripts and loved them. She thought it was awesome and she was a big supporter. That was a big reason why I wanted to do it — because she thought it was all very cool.
The show has such a sharp but nuanced take on the wellness industry. Did the show’s perspective on these issues generally align with your own?
Yeah, I think so. It was an interesting time for this show to come into my life. I am someone who falls smack dab in the middle when it comes to deciding my opinion between conventional and nonconventional therapies. And the show sheds a lot of light on the immense confusion that surrounds the medical world and the wellness industry as a whole. It also sheds light on human behavior. To me, the show is a lot about hope and the idea that wellness brings to so many people. And yeah, I love that. Sam Strauss, our creator and writer tackles these themes with such grace — where it’s sad, heartbreaking and heavy one moment; and then really funny at other times. That’s been my experience, so I really appreciate that point of view.
Watching the show almost felt like a really fun form of therapy to me. It has all the feels.
Oh, me too. It definitely felt therapeutic for me to do this show. I think that was the goal. Sam is so brilliant.
Ashley Zukerman as Clive and Kaitlyn Dever as Belle in Apple Cider Vinegar.
Courtesy of Netflix
Can we talk about the show’s ending? I felt maybe there’s a glimmer of hope for Belle at the end. There’s that scene of her looking out through the window at her husband and her son, and she gets a little emotional, which I interpreted as her recognizing that despite everything she’s been through, she miraculously hasn’t lost the most important thing in her life yet — the two of them. But moments before this scene, she still wasn’t able to clearly say that she doesn’t have cancer — which suggests that she probably still has a ways to go in her mental health journey. I asked Samantha this question too. But how do you read this ending for Belle?
I think you’re absolutely right. I think there’s hope in the end of the series, but it also really says a lot about how far she still has to go. Her relationship with her husband, Clive, is a very complicated one with so many layers to it. I think when she met him, there was a significant part of her that just thought he would be useful to her. But, you know, their relationship goes through so many twists and turns, exploring rules, boundaries and avoidant behavior. Through most of these ups and down, Belle is very much in control. But by the end of the series — and even in that small moment, specifically — I think there’s been a power rebalancing, where they’ve become more equal with each other. Regarding her relationship with her son, one thing that we were constantly talking about on set is that Belle really wanted to be a good mom. When playing that moment, I believed that she’s thinking about wanting to give to her son what she never received as a child — stability and love. Even though it’s a small look, I think that final moment contains all of these things.
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