The Summer I Turned Pretty actor Gavin Casalegno is aware his character Jeremiah is not beloved by the internet masses.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, the YA star reflected on the particular ire his Fisher brother draws from both viewers and even social media accounts of certain brands that proclaim themselves “Team Conrad.”
“They tend to dislike him, yes. I don’t check Instagram anymore, so I really haven’t seen that much hate,” Casalegno said. “The only thing that I see is my sister sending me the memes that are really funny. I think it’s important to also understand and realize that this is a fictional story — and it’s also not me.”
He continued, “I don’t think there’s a single human being in the world who can carry the emotional negativity to the degree that stuff like this happens. And I think that’s why Amazon did a good job of stepping in and being like, ‘Hey, no bullying.’ Though, not really going so well.”
Casalegno is referring to a PSA posted by the show’s official social media account ahead of the Season 3 premiere, which advocated for keeping conversation around the show “kind” and reaffirmed a “ZERO tolerance policy” on hate speech, bullying and targeting of cast.
The actor also noted that, in real life, people have approached him to say how much they hate Jeremiah: “It’s pretty comical,” he said.
Adapted from Jenny Han’s best-selling trilogy, the dramedy stars Lola Tung as Belly, caught between childhood love Conrad (Christopher Briney) and his brother Jeremiah. Season 3 centers around the upcoming nuptials between the now collegiate Belly and Jeremiah. Episode 7 of the junior installment aired last Thursday, with a scheduled weekly release lasting until the series finale Sept. 17.
In the latest episode (spoilers ahead), Belly and Jeremiah’s respective bachelorette and bachelor parties ended direly: Not only did Belly confront her latent feelings for Conrad, who she realized coaxed her mom Laurel (Jackie Chung) into agreeing to partake in her wedding to Jeremiah, but the revelation of her fiancé’s cheating led to a blowout fight between the two exes on the cool shores of Cousins Beach. Though Conrad confesses his love for Belly and begs her not to marry his brother, she rejects him, before breaking down in tears away from the scene. Jeremiah, who missed the couple’s planned rendezvous, is sleeping soundly after having had too much to drink, leaving Belly to cuddle up next to her best friend Taylor (Rain Spencer) as she reels from what happened.
