We have a new fav character from The Summer I Turned Pretty: Agnes. Conrad’s straight-taking new friend is a breath of fresh air after so much Belly/Conrad/Jeremiah drama. But the character Agnes is really different to how she was portrayed in the book. The actor who slays as Agnes, Zoé de Grand’Maison, explained how her character’s role in the book was changed for the show.
So, the third season of The Summer I Turned Pretty is based on Jenny Han’s 2011 book We’ll Always Have Summer. In the book, we don’t learn much about Agnes. We know she went out with Conrad for about three months. Agnes realised Conrad was still pining over his brother’s girlfriend and she couldn’t really commit to her. She dumped him, but they stayed friends. The book doesn’t show much of her as a person – she seems to only appear to show how much Conrad still likes Belly.
Zoé de Grand’Maison says that Jenny Han knew Agnes’s portrayal needed to be different from the book. She told Teen Vogue: “Yeah, she said, “Take a look at the scene in the book.” I was like, “I already have!” She said, essentially, ‘We’re gonna expand the character and dive into that friendship a little more.’”
She’s judgey but in the best possible way
(Credit: Prime Video)
In The Summer I Turned Pretty show, Agnes becomes way more important and actually got a personality. This is a huge improvement, because in 2025 we really should have female characters who exist beyond their romantic relationships with men.
Zoe views Agnes as having a very different role in the show to in the book. She explained: “I feel like my character’s purpose is that I finally give the audience a chance to get into Conrad’s head, because she’s able to open him up and and pull these things out of him. I see her as a bit of an unpaid therapist.”
She continued, “I feel like Agnes created this very non-judgmental environment. That’s why she can kind of pick on him a little, because he knows that, at the end of the day, there’s a safe space and she is there with open arms and to accept him as he is.”
Awww. It’s so wholesome that Conrad has someone in his life that isn’t a relative (or his long-term on-and-off somewhat incestuous ex-girlfriend).
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Feature images by Prime Video.
