‘There’s a relationship or a character for everybody’: Sean Kaufman on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’s expansive fan base

There’s something magical about Jenny Han‘s The Summer I Turned Pretty, and that’s true for both the books and the Prime Video series. Her writing is compelling, making it easy to fall in love with the story and characters, and the actors and actresses who breathe life into them on television are gripping and talented, perfectly acting out the tale Han wrote.

With season two on the horizon, the cast has been sharing details about new episodes. Sean Kaufman and Lola Tung (who play Steven and Belly Conklin) opened up about how wonderful it is that the demographic of viewers is so expansive.

Speaking to Access, Kaufman says that one of the most beautiful things about The Summer I Turned Pretty is that it’s a show with something for everyone.

“I think, more importantly, there’s just a relationship or a character for everybody. I think one of the biggest, like, one of the most surprising reactions for me was that, like, an expected audience being like, you know, young adults or whatever we would always like, come up to us and say how much they love it, but then there was a surprising amount of like the older generation, people like “old people,” Kaufman laughs at himself, “There were a surprising amount of like, older people.”

It’s important to note that Kaufman wasn’t making a statement about age in a negative light; instead, he was thrilled that people outside of the “standard” audience were interested in the series, too.

Lola Tung speaks up and says she noticed the same thing, and people outside the traditional YA audience would usually preface it by saying something like, “I know it’s not for my demographic, but…”

Kaufman says that’s precisely what he means; those compliments mean the most.

“It’s like this thing where it’s like, no, but it is like, sure it is YA show, but there are beautifully like handcrafted relationships between Susannah and Laurel, that it’s like, this show has a part for every single fan who’s watching, and there’s so much for people to relate to that. I think it just spreads across more than just being a YA show.”

The relationship between Susannah and Laurel is actually one of the most influential pieces of the entire TSITP puzzle, and with audiences anticipating the heartache of her loss, it’ll be especially interesting to see what Laurel does when the thing she fears most actually happens. Laurel will have to draw from deep within herself to find the strength to go on without her person; she’ll have to find out how to navigate an important chapter of her life without the person she loves most.

Everyone in the Conklin and Fisher families will struggle with the loss of Susannah, and in experiencing that struggle, they’ll find paths back to one another. The Summer I Turned Pretty season two kicks off on July 14.