Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3.
Gavin Casalegno, Sean Kaufman, and Rain Spencer have seen their characters grow up for real in the third season of The Summer I Turned Pretty — as Jeremiah, Steven, and Taylor, they've all reckoned with their mistakes as much as Belly and Conrad have throughout this show.
Now, as the cast await more details on the forthcoming TSITP movie, they're looking toward what's next in that growth: Have Steven and Taylor figured out how to commit and be vulnerable with each other for the long haul? Can Jeremiah fully own up to his mistakes and heal from his daddy issues? (And will he ever get that 70% cacao dark chocolate cake with a mirror glaze and raspberry coulis?)
Below, the trio sit down with Teen Vogue in Paris to reveal improvised scenes, discuss Denise's impact on all three of their characters, and laugh about how Jeremiah is acting like he's in The Bear. (And Casalegno told us on the red carpet that Jeremiah might just make the cake himself.)
Gavin Casalegno: About a year-and-a-half ago. No, I'm just kidding. Could you imagine? That would be crazy. No, we heard whispers and rumors.
Rain Spencer: Yeah. It became official last night. But there was the rumor kind of going around.
RS: I would like to see Taylor pursuing her dreams a little. I'd like to see Taylor and Steven actually commit to each other and see what that looks like, when they're actually in a relationship, you know? It'd be interesting to see what that looks like if they were to fight for it, be on the same team.
GC: Yeah, I would love to see their relationship explored. I think their chemistry on screen is phenomenal and I'd love to see their performances together as they explore a new area of their characters and of their relationship. And then, selfishly, I'd love to see Jeremiah pursue his passions with culinary stuff, wherever that takes him.
Sean Kaufman: Yeah, I want to see Staylor, I want to see what that looks like when it's real, when they're fighting for each other. I want to see them get a little dog or something. I want to see them get a cottage in Scotland and move away and live on a prairie. I want to see Jeremiah work with Jeremy Allen. I don't know what his character's name is.
GC: That'd be sick.
SK: I want to do, like, a Bear crossover over there.
GC: Please.
SK: I want to have you yelling at people. I feel like you'd be really good at that.
GC: Really?
SK: Yeah.
GC: All right, cool.
SK: We did the kitchen scenes with you!
GC: We did do the kitchen scenes.
RS: "Get the fuck out!"
GC: I do remember that, yeah. Gordon Ramsey style.
SK: And then I want you to get your own cooking show, like Anthony Bourdain or somebody, and just travel the world.
GC: Oh, that would be so sick.
GC: Really?? Hey I'm down for that.
SK: That's so funny. That's amazing.
SK: I don't want to speak for you guys, but I say all the time where I'm like, the name of the show is The Summer I Turned Pretty, and Belly being the titular “I” in that, this season, Paris, and the ending solidified that title to me, where it's like you finally have watched this girl and her story, and by the end she's actually blossoming into this wonderful, beautiful woman. She finally gets away from the whole mess of the boys for a little bit and is able to go to Paris and find herself. By the time the final shot pulls out on the two of them, it's like, "Oh, I feel like we went on this journey with her and she actually really did discover herself so much." So I felt closure in that.
.jpg)
RS: Yeah, it was beautiful. I watched the episode for the first time last night, with everyone in the audience, and it just was beautiful to me. I love the Paris stuff. I love her journey. I love that she got scared and then built the courage back up.
GC: I was like, “If you don't run after him right now, I'm going to be pissed.”
GC: No, literally. Yeah, I heard it.
RS: I loved that we got a little bit of Taylor's backstory, because you could see that she's sort of more of the parent in that dynamic … and her mom has some issues around dating that maybe affected Taylor a bit, and we get to see what she chooses to take from her mom. Like, "Okay, I'm going to take this, I'm going to learn this, but I don't want that part." She's deciding on the type of woman that she wants to be. I think that's beautiful. I think that's just a part of being a young adult is like, what do I want to take from my parents and what kind of woman do I want to be?
RS: I love that scene. I think [Sean] is a great actor and it just makes it very easy to bounce off of, and I thought that seemed really special for their arc.
SK: So glad we're doing a movie. If I missed an opportunity to work with Rain Spencer again, I would [die]. I love her so much. She's so talented.
RS: Love you.
GC: Dang. I mean, even saying that line, I was like, "Dang, this line has a lot of weight to it." It just shows how much he's realized of himself and how much he's grown. No, I think that was super important. There was a few lines specifically in that one scene with Denise and also over the phone [with Belly] where it's like, "I just hope you're good and I should let you go," that were just so impactful and meaningful. I think it was very mature of Jeremiah to take that step, and I'm glad he did.
SK: She's so real. She's so funny.
GC: She comes with just such a sassy, sarcastic tone in the character, and it's so fun, too. Our office scenes were so fun. There was one scene that actually made it in where I was throwing stuff at her. I eventually threw a paper airplane at her, and genuinely, we were just goofing around and doing stuff and picking on each other, and it ended up making it. There was a lot of other improv things that took place that made it, some didn't. It was fun working with her. I feel like it brought out a different dynamic. She's just so real in this and calls things out for what it is. Like “yacht formal” and stuff like that, like so funny.
RS: She was, I think, pivotal for Taylor's inner struggle and overcoming that, because Taylor got to let go of it and actually be like, "Okay, I want Steven to be happy. This girl is great. She's great. Not judging her. She's awesome." There's something so special about that too, just for women to be like, "You're great." I have to be okay in myself and I'm good. And if I can acknowledge that, if I can love myself and realize that I'm okay, no matter what, I have my own back. So then I can see that someone else is great and not judge them because I feel okay about myself.
SK: We hate women tearing down other women. Also, shout out Isabella Briggs. A fantastic actor. Fantastic person.
GC: She's killer. She's killer. She's so good.
SK: Oh, so much. I mean, she was so pivotal to Steven's arc this season. One of the things that really was amazing was that Denise saw Steven in a way that I think nobody ever had. When they started talking about this business and they started really trusting each other, and she started seeing him for his brain and his power and his creativity, and this side of him that I don't think a lot of other people do get to see, where it's like, "Ah, he's just this goofball, it's like Belly's older brother," you know what I mean? And she really got to be like, "Well, but I have faith in you. I believe in what you're doing, and I want you to push for it." It was so pivotal for Steven to have somebody to believe in him like that because it really pushes him to bring the best out of himself and then follow his dream and pursue what he wants to do.
GC: Dude, Tom is awesome.
RS: He's the best.
GC: Tom is so great. He is such an incredible actor, and the stuff he brought, he had improv'd a lot too. The stuff he brought to the scenes was so fun, and you really dislike him in the beginning. And then you start to see even him undergo changes in growth in his own journey. The last scene, especially of him being like, "I'm proud of you," was super impactful. Getting to see Jeremiah and really feel for everything that he's going through, always being second best, second choice, like all these other things to Belly, to Adam, to Laurel, to Steven, literally to everybody, and then to see him finally be like, “Hey, by the way, I'm proud of you,” it was just such a huge weight on him removed, and I think I'm excited to see the relationship continue.
GC: I think he has a lot of healing to do. He just spent over five years with this girl, planning a life and doing his thing, and it just all fell apart right before his eyes in all of the worst possible ways. Genuinely, I think there's a lot of healing that he needs to do just to be a healthy human being and healthy in a relationship as well. I think he's matured a lot, and I'm grateful to see him on the other side of a lot of really traumatic experiences, but I would still like to see him heal a little bit more and to see how he grows up as a person.
RS: I think Taylor's wound is deep, and you can practice things and then you can kind of regress, and then you can learn again. Like I said before, healing isn't linear, so it comes in different waves and cycles. So I think in some ways she'll be practicing the same things for a while. And it'll only get better and better, but like one step forward, two steps back, or maybe she grows a lot and then she... Or maybe there are different ways to practice the same thing. So I think this is going to be a journey for her for a while. And that's a beautiful thing.
SK: I think Steven has never been in a relationship where he's had to commit before, and I think he's finally choosing to do that. I think that there's a lot of uncertainty for himself, and he's just never done it before, and that's going to come with growing pains and fights and arguments, and a lot of stuff, but as long as he stays committed, it's for the best. But it's definitely a lot where he has to grow, because that's not something you can just... It's not a fairytale ending ever. It's not bang, and now they're happy. It's like, well, no, they're going to go through their things.
RS: What does it look like when you're in the relationship and then something comes up and how do you navigate that? How do you handle that?
SK: I think that there's so much growth there for him in that aspect where it's like, "I got to work on this." Rain said something beautiful just now, but it is like... I mean, one of the things that I, as Sean, have to remind myself over and over and over and over and over again is you have to learn a lesson over 100 times in your life. You're going to have to constantly relearn and relearn and relearn the same message, but just apply it in different situations because inherently it makes it different. That's really tough because it can feel like you're not growing, it can feel like, "Wait, but I'm regressing. It's just I'm relearning the same thing." It's like, but the reality is you're in a different situation than you were, so it's beautiful.
TV: I like that. I feel like it can be so frustrating to be like, "Well, sh*t, here I am again back dealing with my same thing."
GC: Yeah, shame and all those things.
RS: And then it's like, having patience. Just being nice to yourself along the way.
GC: Having mercy and grace.
RS: Having some grace for yourself, yeah.
SK: They do this thing, which is fair, because they're fictional characters and it's all online, but I think it's funny because the stuff that I've seen, they do it for Conrad than don't do it for everybody else, which I find amusing, where it's like I think the internet has a tendency to define somebody by a single mistake they've made in their past. Especially when they've shown signs of growth, that they're willing to move past it and willing to learn from it. I just think we've got to stop defining people and villainizing them for doing something that they know is wrong, and as long as they're actively working towards [repairing] it, you have to get over it because they are.
GC: You're so right. I do think a lot of people in season one, they excused all of [Conrad's] actions because he's hurting or because he's holding a secret and he knows, and then Jeremiah for the rest of the season, sure he makes mistakes, but it almost seems like the same perspective and grace that's been put on Conrad was not on Jeremiah, and so a lot of people were hating him. Now obviously seeing everything that Jeremiah went through, it's almost like they are like, "Oh, maybe I understand, maybe we should apologize for how we were acting because of how much he's gone through and how much he was holding, and the weight," and given all things considered, it changes your perspective on how harsh to be on Jeremiah specifically.
GC: I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are.
SK: That is literally the only thing that I really care about, because it's like, again, we're all fictional characters on the show, so do whatever you want, but in your real life, I hope that, for everybody out there in your real life, I hope you can give your friends grace and give yourself grace and just learn to love yourself and move on.
