All about love! As The Summer I Turned Pretty fans found themselves caught between Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah, the cast of the hit Prime Video series has had sparks flying off screen in their own love lives.
After the show debuted in June 2022, viewers quickly fell in love with Belly’s (Lola Tung) adventures in Cousins Beach and her love triangle with brothers Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and Conrad (Christopher Briney). For Casalegno, it was important to show how Jeremiah’s feelings for Belly grew after so many years of them just being friends.
“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,” he told J-14 at the time. “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 going to love it.”
The Texas native also praised author and showrunner Jenny Han for allowing his character to explore his sexuality. “That’s where I think Jenny did a beautiful job with her writing and not making it something that was like, like every [part of the character],” Casalegno explained during an interview with Seventeen in June 2022. “It wasn’t everything — it was just a nice little treat on the side, and I think it really just goes to show how amazing Jenny is with updating her work and bringing it to today’s world, because it’s so different now.”
He continued: “Honestly, I was so honored to be a part of that change and that direction of where we were taking it and [bringing] that diversity. And I think it’s so important to have that. I think it’s so special. Jeremiah is always he’s figuring out, more and more, who he is and that’s just a part of him. It’s a beautiful process, and I just have Jenny to thank for that completely.”
As for his off screen love life, Casalegno opened up about being a “hopeless romantic” who prefers making grand gestures for girlfriend Larsen Thompson.
“I think the craziest gesture was when my current girlfriend had her 16th birthday party and I had only spent like a week with her at that point,” he recalled to the magazine. “I secretly bought a plane ticket out to go surprise her for her 16th. Her parents brought her to some restaurant at Universal Studios and I jumped out of the corner and fake proposed with a Hershey’s kiss. Little did I know her dad was standing right there, and so that was the first time meeting him. It was hilarious. We laugh about it now, but I haven’t found a length that I wouldn’t go to make a romantic gesture.”
His costar Briney, however, has kept his romance with Isabela Rose Machado more low-key so far. In June 2022, Machado showed her support for her boyfriend by walking the red carpet with him at The Summer I Turned Pretty premiere in New York City.
Sign up for Us Weekly’s free, daily newsletter and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more!
Keep scrolling to learn more about The Summer I Turned Pretty cast and their respective love lives:
