Beanie Feldstein on Her 'Soulmate Connection' with Ben Platt & Why the Merrily We Roll Along Film Will Be 'Worth the Wait'

Beanie Feldstein has been going non-stop. In the past three years, she made her Broadway debut as Minnie Fay in Hello, Dolly!, appeared in the Oscar-nominated Lady Bird, earned a Golden Globe nomination for her turn in Booksmart, released a new film How to Build a Girl, and has been announced to star in the movie adaptations of the stage shows The Humans and Merrily We Roll Along. Through it all, Feldstein has kept her deep theater roots intact. She ever participated in several of Broadway.com's livestreams including the Sondheim 90th Birthday Concert and Broadway Does Mother's Day. Feldstein spoke with Broadway.com's Paul Wontorek on a recent episode of #LiveatFive: Home Edition  about her whirlwind career and more.

After its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2019, How to Build a Girl was on track to have a theatrical wide-release. But the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused the new film to be released digitally instead. "Obviously, we're so sad that How to Build a Girl can't be in theaters, and we can't have those communal experiences art can give us," Feldstein said. "But I'm so glad people can watch it safely inside. It's a really loving, warm movie with a lot of sass. It's sexy ,and it's sultry, and it's loud. It's also really just genuinely imaginative and warm, and I think we can all use a little dose of that."

Telling the story of a British young woman and her complicated rise as a popular music journalist, Feldstein found a unique way to master the specific Wolverhampton accent needed for her role. "I ended up working at a store in Wolverhampton for three weeks," she said. "The producers found this incredible little feminist utopia of a store called the Shop in the Square. I'm still part of their employee Facebook group; they were just so kind to me. They opened their shop and their arms by inviting this random girl from L.A. in and letting her learn the accent in their presence. At first they were really sweet but there came a point where they were like, 'Can I be hard on you?' It was a very immersive experience, unlike anything I've ever done before."

Although Feldstein has constantly been on our screens, she can't wait to return to her first love: the stage. "If Broadway will have me, I dream of being back there very soon," she said. "I grew up being musical theater-obsessed and it's still so surreal to look back and see how it all worked out. I was filming Ladybird in Los Angeles and the same producers of Hello, Dolly! were doing Ladybird and they made the connection for me to come in for Minnie Faye. Typically Minnie Faye is played by a smaller, blonde girl, and they took a chance on me. I went and auditioned in L.A. and came home to my parents house and got a call from my agent, and he told me I got it. I ran through my house like a Chihuahua. I was hysterical! My parents were hysterically crying, I was losing my mind. When I was finally allowed to tell Ben [Platt], he sent me like the maps from the Dear Evan Hansen theater to the Shubert, and it's like a two-second walk. He said, 'I can't believe this is our life.' The year I was on Broadway with Hello, Dolly! was truly the best year of my life."

Feldstein and Platt have been friends since high school and have been a constant in each other's lives ever since. Often arriving together on opening nights and singing with each other for events (don't miss their rendition of "It Takes Two" from the Sondheim 90th Birthday Concert), the duo will appear in the movie adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along that will be filmed over 20 years. "I can't say anything too specific," Feldstein said. "What I can say is that I think what Ben and I have is beyond friendship, honestly. It's like a soulmate connection. We're like twins separated at birth or something. We've always loved Merrily, but I think in our college age years, we both kind of fell in love with it. I got the role in Ladybird where we do parts of the show, and I hadn't seen the musical yet. Ben and I were across the street from Lincoln Center having lunch, and I was like, 'I really wanna watch it.' Ben said. 'Why don't we try to go to the [New York Public Library for the Performing Arts] archive?' Ben and I watched it together that day, which was so special. It'll be worth the wait."

Watch Feldstein talk more about her dream role and more in the full episode below!