Following the success of Jenny Han's previous creation, To All The Boys I've Loved Before, the author's newest adapted work, The Summer I Turned Pretty, has gathered attention for its sweet coming-of-age love story and relatable characters.
In particular, one of the Amazon Prime Video series' main love interests, Jeremiah, has been written to be an openly proud queer teenager, which differs from how the character had been written in the original trilogy where he is categorically straight.
Speaking to Digital Spy, Han and Gavin Casalegno, who plays Jeremiah, opened up about the importance of "updating the script" to reflect society today.
Related: First trailer for To All the Boys star's new Netflix rom-com
"I think Jenny did a great job at updating the script to current day [standards]," said Casalegno.
"[Jeremiah being openly queer] was so important in just making it relatable. I feel like it was such an important part to bring into the show just because of the world we live in today, and it wouldn't do it justice.
"I'm honoured to be a part of exploring that and having that on film and just honoured to be exploring that with Jeremiah."
Han went on to comment about her choice of approaching the script for the adaptation as if she was telling the story "for the first time in the current time, in 2022".
"I thought that was a really good opportunity for the character, where I think if I was writing it now, I probably would have done that because I think Jeremiah is really comfortable in his own skin and he is at ease with himself," she told Digital Spy.
"He's still figuring out who he is and what he likes. The characters are quite young, he's only 16, and I think this younger generation – to me – feels a bit more free in terms of labels and putting themselves in like distinct groups."
The Summer I Turned Pretty is available now on Amazon Prime Video.
Best Entertainment and Tech Deals
