Making some changes! While The Summer I Turned Pretty stays pretty true to author Jenny Han‘s source material, the cast explains to J-14 exclusively that a few plotlines needed to be adjusted in order to bring the show “up to date.”
“I think it was really cool to sort of have his blueprint, I guess, while we were filming. But then, also recognizing that with the script and everything, it updated a little bit — it was changed a little bit,” Lola Tung, who stars as Belly Conklin tells J-14. “Jenny [Han] was saying this before, but she always says to her readers — I guess I’ll just take her little line here — that you already have this version of your characters in your mind and that’s yours forever. It, for me, was obviously, I wanna make the readers happy and the viewers happy but I think it’s really important to not try to exactly replicate whatever there is in the book, you know what I mean? Or try to be whatever … I tried to bring myself to the character and make it my own.”
Her costars, Sean Kaufman (Steven Conklin), Christopher Briney (Conrad Fisher) and Gavin Casalegno (Jeremiah Fisher) agree.
“Whatever expectations are put on the character by other people are amazing and I’m so thankful for it,” Sean shares of his character. “But at the end of the day, I have to be truthful who Steven was for me. I think we all had a little bit of a cheat code on set with Jenny being the showrunner, and being on set every single day. You know, if we had a question we could always go to her and that was amazing, but it really was just about finding who that person is for me.”
When it came to bringing the Fisher boys to life on screen, Christopher explains that he worked to join “these images and these ideas” that fans have while bringing himself to the role. “You sort of, you know, slam the two together,” he jokes.
Gavin, for his part, feels it was “cool” to bring himself into Jeremiah. “I think we all are very blessed to be able to have an outline in the book,” he explains. “It’s actually very rare. We got really lucky.”
Ahead of the show‘s premiere, both Christopher and Gavin knew that fans would have a lot of thoughts about their romantic relationships with Belly. However, the actors worked to bring “authenticity” to the love triangle.
“Worrying about what other people are gonna think — even in real life — worrying about what other people are gonna think is going to stress you out and make you worry about the little things,” Gavin says. “I think with our relationship, and with our romantic relationship with Belly, it was so much fun just being able to explore the authenticity of it and the genuineness … just it being so genuine. It was so much fun to work with Lola on screen. I felt like everything just kind of went super smoothly. I know everyone’s gonna love it.”
Looking for more differences from The Summer I Turned Pretty series? Scroll through our gallery to read what the cast said.
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