Prime Video’s The Summer I Turned Pretty is so incredibly popular that series creator and showrunner Jenny Han is continuing Belly’s story with a film. Prime Video announced the upcoming movie just hours after the third season’s finale aired but thus far hasn’t set a target date for its premiere.
Han, who’s co-writing and directing the movie, recently participated in a press conference that provided a behind-the-scenes look at The Summer I Turned Pretty’s casting, music, and love triangle. The following are highlights from the virtual chat, including how Han went about getting Taylor Swift to agree to the use of her songs.
On what fans can expect from the film:
Jenny Han: “Well, I think that I know that the fans were worried that they were going to get a five-second reunion between Belly and Conrad, and they weren’t going to be able to see them together as a couple in the present time, because pretty much everything we see of them other than the end of the season one kiss is a flashback. It’s a memory. So, I think that’s one thing I know that I’m going to deliver to the fans for them to see them as they are as these two young adults in the present.”
On being able to continue Belly’s story:
Jenny Han: “Oh, it’s just been a joy. Yeah, it’s been really fun to have this more, I would say, contained story versus the more sort of expansive, sprawling, elegiac kind of almost novelistic story. This is complete, in and of itself, because my goal is that it’s something that somebody who has never watched the show could watch this movie and really enjoy it and people who are fans of the show would also enjoy it, and I would like to achieve that balance.”
Incorporating Taylor Swift songs into the series:
Jenny Han: “It was different season to season, because on season one, I really didn’t know if we were going to be able to get the song that I really wanted, which was ‘The Way I Loved You.’ And that was really important to me to have that song because I had even pitched the show with that song. I knew exactly how I wanted it to go, where he’s standing up and looking at her and then it had that swell of the music. And so, I really, really knew that we needed that song.
And so, that’s when we approached her team. I wrote a letter, a very heartfelt letter, just explaining to her how much her music meant to the fans of the show who I knew would just be beyond thrilled to have… Well, the fans of the books, I should because the show wasn’t even out yet. And so, we were really lucky that she said yes. So, then I was like, ‘Okay, well, then can we also have these songs?’ And they said yes. And so then on season two, I started out already kind of making a list of how I wanted to use the music over the course of the season.
Sometimes with the songs, I write it into the script when I know for sure. And then sometimes it comes during production as I’m just thinking about it or sometimes it’s during post, so it can really vary. On season three, I also had a wish list of songs I wanted for the show.”
The evolution of the love triangle:
Jenny Han: “I think it’s just naturally progressed to where we end. It has to end somewhere. Although I know fans were like, ‘Oh, we want more! Can we just have another season?’ And to me it was always important to do the three. There are three books, and having three seasons just felt like the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story. So, I think that having that structure felt right to me.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty’s message:
Jenny Han: “[…] I would say it was hard when I was first pitching the show trying to think up comps for it, because I knew that I wanted it to really span generations, and that the stories of the mothers were important, separate from the kids, and wanting them to really feel like fully realized characters that their existence wasn’t defined by being a parent that they had their own inner lives as women. I think because the larger message of the show really is that coming of age isn’t really limited to just being a teenager, it’s something your whole life you experience and you go through.
And so, all the characters are having their own coming of ages from the very beginning with Susannah dying in season one and being sick and grappling with that and going into this next phase of life. And then Laurel, who has had her best friend by her side her whole adult life, grappling with, ‘What’s it going to be now without her and who am I?’
[…] I think the first season has a lighter feel to it because Belly’s very innocent. It’s her first kind of awakening and her eyes are sort of opening to certain things. And she’s coming into the world in a different way. She’s been, I would say, fairly sheltered most of her life. And so, this is her time to sort of be questioning and having those first steps into the real world as a young person in the world, not as a child.
And then we have all those really magical firsts, like a first kiss and this first ball and a first big heartbreak as well. And then big loss. I think her real coming of age is learning that Susannah, who is like a second mother to her, is sick and dying. And that is like when you are no longer a child, because you’re not really protected from that anymore. You have to come to terms with that. And then in season two, it’s all about grief and the different ways that the characters manage that grief. So, I would say that that’s so much about that growth. And then season three, it’s really, ‘Who am I now truly stepping into my young adulthood?’”
On casting the four main characters and witnessing their growth as actors:
Jenny Han: “I’ll start with Lola (Tung) where she was 18 years old when she auditioned for the show. She was a freshman at Carnegie Mellon and had never been in front of the camera before. And so, this was her first job as an actor. I think it was maybe her first audition even.
There was just something about her that right away, I felt drawn to in almost like a maternal way of looking at her as this really young person who had so much brightness and light to her and joy. I just felt myself instinctively rooting for her and wanting her to win. I think that’s what I needed for Belly, a person that the audience could look at and think, ‘Yeah, you’re making some mistakes, but I really want you to come through this.’
I knew that that was what the character was going to require because there’s a lot of messiness to her story and she does stumble and fall, but you still need to be on her side. So, I think that Lola really achieved that goal.
Although it’s funny, you know over the course of that summer on the first season, she turned 19 on the last day of filming. It was the day that we shot the ball and she’s wearing this beautiful gown, and they’re all waltzing, and there’s so much love in the room. I remember bringing out the cakes and looking at her and thinking, ‘How magical is this moment that you’re so beloved by the people who are working with you, the crew, the cast. Everybody adores you and you’re in this beautiful dress and you’re really coming into your own.’
[…] She learned it really quickly and then had to kind of figure out how to navigate it. And I said to her, just like on the show, I felt like looking at her, like her eyes looked different to me at the end of that summer than they did at the beginning, where there was more of a knowingness there. There was some wisdom from everything that she had been through, which was, it’s not an easy feat to hold a whole production on your back when you’re so young. And can you do it? I don’t know, because you have never done it before. And so, that I think, is just so meta and a special thing just to witness as her showrunner, but also as a friend.
And then, Chris (Briney), I knew right away that I thought he was Conrad. We’d been looking for a while, and then his tape came in and he just blew me away. He brings a real honesty and realness to the character. And I think his is not an easy character to embody because when you first meet him, he’s very different from who he is, who all the characters know him as. So, you’re masking a lot. And having to do that from the very beginning before you’ve been able to play him at his best, you’re sort of playing him at his lowest. So, I would say that he really was a perfect Conrad.
And then for Gavin (Casalegno) as Jeremiah, I think he ended up being the last person we cast. That was a really hard role to fill also because he needed to have a lot of natural sunniness to him and an optimism in the way that he looked at the world. I think it’s just kind of hard to find that. And then with Gavin, I think he did bring a lot of his own natural ebullience and ease in the way that he walks in the world.
And then Sean (Kaufman), who plays Steven, I think he might’ve… He also read for Cam Cameron. Or did he… He read for a couple… All of them read for numerous parts, I think. Most of them did. I liked Sean so much that I knew that I would want it to… because I knew I had a bigger story for Steven down the road and I knew that Cam’s story was really limited to season one. And then I also felt like the energy between him and Lola was immediately brother-sister energy. They had gone to high school together. They didn’t really hang out in high school, but they knew each other. And so, I just felt like that ease was already there.”
The culmination of years of attraction with the finale:
Jenny Han: “I think for the finale, it’s definitely a build between the two of them, and I guess kind of a dance. She is obviously taken off guard when she sees him standing there – and she’s wary as well. And so, I think the day is really for him to get to know her as she is today and for her to slowly let her walls come down. And seeing them meeting each other, I think, outside of Cousins is really important because there’s so much history between the two of them, and so much baggage.
And to me, the big question is, if I met you today, would I love you? Or is there so much between us from the past, so much history that sort of colors everything about our story? So, I think as the day goes on, and she sort of lets her guard down, then she really does allow him to see who she’s become, and vice versa.”
The post Jenny Han Talks ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ Taylor Swift, and the Movie appeared first on ShowbizJunkies.
0 Comments