Interview: ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Cast Weighs In On What’s Best For Belly

*Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike going into effect. Awards Radar stands with the actors, their union, and wishes for a resolution that helps the working actor live a better life. Union Strong!*

We know what many, many viewers will be doing this summer as Prime Video’s hit coming-of-age drama series The Summer I Turned Pretty returns for season two. The series revolves are Belly (Lola Young) and a pair of brothers she has known for years Conrad (Christopher Briney) whom she had a crush on since she was twelve and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). The trio along with Belly’s brother Steven (Sean Kaufman) all spend the summer together at the Fisher family beach house.

As you may expect the seemingly platonic relationship evolves into a love triangle which tests the friendships and sibling relationships by the end of season one. As the series returned for its latest season some major dramatic turns are made which will change the group forever. The cast of The Summer I Turned Pretty spoke with Awards Radar about friendship, family and of course the love triangle. The interviews are light on spoilers, but really dig into the characters in unexpected ways.

Lola Young, who is at the middle of the series discussed some of the challenges her character Belly and her brother faces this season, “I think they’re kind of dealing with the fact that they’re growing up at the same time, but they don’t have each other to lean on, because some of the relationships have have greatly changed and need a little bit of work to be repaired. So everyone’s dealing with their own self growth by themselves, which is a hard thing to do sometimes, but especially when you have million other things going on.”

Young’s co-star and on-screen brother, Kaufman added to her, “It’s easy to do it in a vacuum, but when you have like real world stuff going on, it’s like ‘how do I pay attention to eight different things while also dealing with my emotions and processing everything?’ The opening moments of season two reveals challenges to the young characters who “forced to grow up and they’re forced to do so together,”said Kaufman. During the conversation Kaufman also gave dating advice to Belly as his character Steve, at the core of it the simple recommendation to “follow your heart.” The full response touched Young and had her emotional. Watch the full exchange below.

In addition the interviews contain some very fun and revealing moments about the characters including Briney and Casalegno who made their cases for who was a better fit for Belly, Conrad or Jeremiah. Actresses Rachel Blanchard, Jackie Chung, & Kyra Sedgwick tackle their advice for Belly from a motherly perspective. Also included is an interview with a trio of Belly’s friends played by David Iacono, Rain Spencer and Elsie Fisher provide some giggle-filled responses including their take on who is best for Belly.

Watch all the entertaining interviews as below. The Summer I Turned Pretty is now steaming on Prime Video – season one in its entirety plus season two which drops new episodes every Friday,