What does almost every teenager have to do before they earn their summer break? Pass a test.
For Lola Tung and Christopher Briney, that was a chemistry read over Zoom to play the central couple on The Summer I Turned Pretty.
And the pressure was on, especially for author Jenny Han, who wasn't sure if lightening would strike twice following the success of her To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Could she find her perfect Belly and Conrad? And virtually, amid a pandemic, no less?
"It was the first chemistry read I had done over Zoom and I was like, 'I don't know if this is going to work?'" Han exclusively told E!. "Obviously, it's more enlightening to be in a room with people and see how they connect and see how they look together and what the energy is."
But when Han saw Tung and Briney together for the first time, she knew she had found her Belly and Conrad.
"It really felt like it was popping off the screen right away," she raved, "honestly."
The same can't be said for Tung. Then a freshman at Carnegie Mellon when she landed the audition, she admitted she was "intimidated" of Britney the first time they virtually met.
"He was such a good Conrad when we read together and he seemed so cool," Tung Told E!. "I just remember reading and being like, 'Wow, this guy is really great.'"
But once Tung met Britney in-person, her nerves disappeared.
"He's so kind and so sweet and a little more on the shy side," she explained. "You can never really be 100 percent sure, but working with him was just so easy because he's a great actor and a great person."
Of course, this being a teen show centering on a love triangle, Han, who serves as co-showrunner, also had to find her Jeremiah, Conrad's younger brother.
"Once you pick a Conrad, you are trying to find a Jeremiah that matches and feels like they could be brothers," Han explained of her process. "They are mirroring them a little bit."
And Gavin Casalegno had that that "golden retriever energy," as Han put it, that could balance out the brooding Briney.
"Jeremiah is a character that doesn't try hard," Han said. "He is just so comfortable in his own skin and Gavin has so much Jeremiah in him, it felt like a really natural match."
To hear more from TSITP cast, including Briney and Casalegno making their case for why Belly should be with their respective character, watch the video above.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.