As played by Krya Sedgwick, Aunt Julia is most definitely an unwelcome presence in Season 2 of Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
This hit teen-centric series revolves around Isabel (Lola Tung), the center of a love triangle with the warring Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah. With their beloved mother’s death, the boys find their sumptuous lakeside estate now belongs to Aunt Julia who arrives determined to sell the place, no matter how upsetting this is for the boys..
This means both Fishers can unite in seeing Julia, their late mother Susannah’s sister, as a villain. But is she? Really?
“She definitely comes in to shake things up, wanting to sell that house which is a huge part of the legacy of the show, this whole world that they’ve built there,” Sedgwick, 57, acknowledged in a Zoom interview.
“So it’s very upsetting and confusing. She feels like somebody who you want to hate. What I think is great about it is ultimately you come to understand her point of view. You may not sympathize with her. Or like her. But you definitely can understand that there is another point of view.
“And that’s what’s interesting to me about the character. You can have two kids in the same family” – like Susannah and Julia – “and they can have a very different memory of their childhood. And both of them are firmly entrenched in their belief and their memories.
“That’s just the way it was with Julia and it’s nice that you get to see that.”
Is “Summer” also suggesting to its many teenage viewers, that in youth there’s a tendency to see everything as black or white and with age comes perhaps wisdom?
“Yes,” Sedgwick answered, “but I also think that Julia in the beginning of the summer also sees things in pretty black and white terms. She’s unwilling to see her part — and you have to be willing to look at the other part. That’s what a lot of maturity is really about.”
Sedgwick’s brilliant, decades-long career includes stage, television, movies. Does it matter whether she’s carrying the show as in her Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning “The Closer” or, as in this series, a supporting player?
“It’s always decided on where the parts are and where the work is. No, it doesn’t matter to me if I’m the lead or if I’m a small part in it. As long as I can do my stuff. You know, as long as I can really show my chops, I feel like I’ll go to many different genres and different sizes of parts.”
“The Summer I Turned Pretty” Season 2 streams 3 of 8 episodes on Prime Video Friday.