Lola Tung Interview

When asked about her hopes and dreams for the future, Lola Tung gives an answer that’s both refreshingly simple and sincere: “I don’t know.”

Over the past 40 minutes, that candid phrase has surfaced nearly a dozen times as the 22-year-old actor has traced the arc of her life and career so far, speaking to me over Zoom from her home in New York City. Her answer to my closing question doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Not because Lola lacks direction – far from it – but because many of her dreams have already come true. She doesn’t need a vision board to feel fulfilled; her present feels like something out of a storybook itself—surreal, saturated with gratitude and almost hard to believe. For now, she’s simply letting herself soak it all in, moment by moment, drop by drop. So – for those unfamiliar with Lola’s monumental entrance onto worldwide screens – we’ll catch you up to speed. 

She’s currently enjoying some rare downtime, smiling into her camera view as she greets me, makeup and hair undone—waiting to be pruned before tonight's Knicks game. Chilling court side is one of the many activities Lola does to keep herself grounded…that, and spending time with her family, friends and dog. “And getting to go see theatre and seeing my friends do theatre,” she adds, hastily, “That’s super grounding for me.” 

It’s no surprise that her favourite pastimes are still so deeply tied to her professional world. For Lola, the performing arts aren’t just a job—they’re embedded in her DNA. A “born-and-raised New Yorker”, she proudly claims her city as the root of her creative spirit. “Especially growing up here, constantly being surrounded by art and people using it for expression, storytelling and activism… I just love every aspect of it,” she says, beaming. Her path to performance was never in doubt. After all, she shares a birthday with Julia Roberts. “AND Frank Ocean,” she laughs. “If you take two things away from this, let it be those.” In 2020, Lola graduated from the esteemed Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, majoring in drama. That Fall, she enrolled in the BFA Acting program at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama—where she completed her first year before booking the breakout role of a lifetime. A character that would soon become synonymous with herself. One that would teach her a whole new bag of tricks. A girl who the entire world would soon grow to love. The lead of The Summer I Turned Pretty: Belly. 

“I felt every single emotion that you could feel,” she reminisces of booking the part. It was her first professional audition—and she hit the ground running. “It was all very quick. I had done the self tape with my roommates and all of a sudden it was like, ‘Alright, they want you to test for it.’ Then it was chemistry reads and I was just thinking, ‘Is this something that would even be possible right now?’” It all seemed too good to be true, but instead of second-guessing herself, Lola jumped straight in…signing her name at the top of the call sheet. “It happened to be the right thing at the right time, I really couldn’t believe it—it still feels so surreal. I was sad to be leaving my friends that I had made at school, but so excited to embark on this new journey.”

If you had asked Lola then what that journey would entail, you’d hear the familiar phrase: “I don’t know”—and it made her entrance into the acting world all the more enthralling. “I’m so grateful that everything happened the way it did and I just had the most fun summer ever filming that first season. Not knowing what would come of it, just knowing that we were doing the thing that we loved and making something really, really awesome,” Lola elaborates. For the Jenny Han book-devourers, the series was a longtime coming…with the first of the best-selling author’s Summer trilogy releasing to roaring Goodreads reviews all the way back in 2009. But somehow – with millions of fans already loyal to a story she was now charged with bringing to life – Lola, an admirer of Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise, remained unfazed for the most part. “I mean, even when we were filming, even though it was this very big project and there were so many moving parts, it still felt like we were doing this thing with all of our friends…which is so wild. I knew that there was a big fanbase of the books and seeing the reaction to all of the little teasers was surreal.” But the penny finally dropped when the series’ first trailer was officially released in 2022, which simultaneously premiered Taylor Swift’s “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” as its soundtrack. “When [her] song was in the trailer, I was like, ‘Oh shit, this is big,’” she says with a mischievous grin. 

But just how big, not many could have predicted. The summer of 2022 will go down in history—not for the discourse on Will Smith’s Oscar slap, or for Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (RIP) and not even for Rihanna’s first pregnancy announcement. Over all the noise, there was one scandal that dominated sleepovers with friends or trips to beer gardens for an only-slightly-warm cider: team Conrad [Chris Briney] or team Jeremiah [Gavin Casalegno]? It didn’t take the primary cast long to figure out just how far the debate between Belly’s potential love interests (and brothers, for added zeal) had spread. “When the show first came out, we were all at a baseball game together—Yankees,” she pauses, trying to stifle her dismay. “People kept coming up to us and asking for photos and then we realised there were so many photos on the internet that we didn’t even know were taken…it was a very new experience. It was nothing we had EVER experienced before and that was a moment where we stopped and went, ‘Wow. People are watching this.’” 

It’s a lot for a then-18 year old to handle; to have your life-as-you-know-it propelled to levels of fame that almost feel blinding. At the time, Lola had only just gotten to grips with how to act on a set and learning to work with a crew…all while the world was still healing from the COVID-19 pandemic. But with that came a lesson Lola is still trying to implement. “Being present is always a challenge, especially with social media and technology. To me, it feels more like I want to prioritise staying grounded and clinging to my friends, family and dog more. I love working and I love doing what I do, but sometimes you feel like, ‘Oh my god, this is so large scale and I’m shrinking into myself a bit because while it’s so incredible, it’s also overwhelming at the same time,” she says, exhaling. “Sometimes all you want is to just have a cup of tea with your mum, you know? I’m learning every step of the way and it never fully becomes…at least for me, I don’t think it’s ever going to feel normal.” 

Luckily, stepping into Belly’s skin felt far more natural than the acclaim she received for it. “I was obviously 18 when I first got cast, so I was pretty close in age to her. I remembered very vividly being 15, 16 and though we were different people, I loved that I was able to bring some of myself to her. I love that she’s kind of messy. There were times when she got a little testy with people. I loved that because I was always very reserved and was scared to take risks…and she takes WAY more risks than I do. It’s sort of taught me to do it myself, it’s like channeling that part of myself that I now have because of her…it’s like stepping into her shoes.” 

Interestingly, the more I speak to Lola about Belly, the more I realise that to be true. As she speaks of her love for the character, she flits between talking in the first and third person: “her” quickly becomes “me” and back round again…almost making it impossible to see where Lola ends and Belly begins. “With Belly, I really wanted to make sure I acknowledged her emotional journey. Again, I knew what it was like to be a teenage girl. I knew what it felt like to feel emotions on such an intense level in such an intense way. A lot of the time, I feel like that’s not taken seriously—especially with women and girls. You get the adults saying, ‘You’re young. What feels like the most important thing right now won’t be important in a couple of years.’ But guess what? It IS important right now. It’s important to me. This is a huge thing that’s happening in my life. I’m growing up, my relationships are changing. I’m confused, I’m dealing with grief at the same time,” she lists passionately, pausing for a quick breath. “I just wanted to make sure that I was portraying all of that in the realest way that I knew how to, and taking all of that seriously and tapping into what I knew from that age and my experience with those emotions.” 

And she’s right. Over the course of two seasons, Belly’s trips to Cousins consist of far more than a will-they won’t-they romance between her two-co-stars. We watch her navigate the complexities of puberty, of viewing the world through a new lens, seeing the world view her in a new light—all the while digging deep into the politics between friends, parents and the like. The first season hones in on the inescapable shifts that come with growing up—while the second uncovers that adulthood proves to be no walk in the park itself. Covering themes of love and loss, tragedy and triumphs, the series takes you – episode by episode – closer to the core of what makes The Summer I Turned Pretty an undisputed success: it flashes a mirror to its audience, revealing the hard truths we often try to look away from as we bid our childhoods goodbye. 

It’s something the whole cast has experienced during their time filming across three seasons; just like their characters, their lives are completely changing. “[The characters] are all experiencing the growing pains of getting older and of grief and of realising that things aren’t the same as when you were five years old anymore. It’s a lot.” The same is true of the young actors themselves—what once felt like “summer camp” while filming on the beach for season one quickly snowballed into them being recognised anywhere they went…with their characters becoming all the more entwined with their own identities. “As you play the character more you start to bring more of yourself, and the writers see the way that you talk and we’ve gotten to have so many discussions with Jenny who is the show runner, so she knows us all so well. I think we’ve started to blend a little bit…we are still our own people, obviously, but it’s cool to see in what ways they’ve incorporated little things about us into our characters,” Lola answers—admitting that even her own parents are not immune to calling her Belly. 

It’s clear playing Belly has opened up Lola’s world. So I wonder – as someone, like many, still trying to figure it out for myself – what has the show taught her about love? “I don’t know”, Lola replies on instinct, dropping her head into her hands in despair before shaking it off. “Honestly…I’ve learned that with every character, like with Conrad and Jeremiah, that love with every person can look entirely different. The way she loves Jeremiah is so different from the way that she loves Conrad, but she loves them both so much. She loves her mum but there’s also such a complicated relationship there. Her relationship with Susanna is very different and her relationship with Taylor comes with tough love and being honest with each other and it can be really hard. I think there’s no one way that love is supposed to look,” she finishes, looking relieved. “I think I need to stop saying I don’t know after everything,” she chuckles as I motion a mic drop through the camera lens. 

But she doesn’t. In all fairness, she really DOESN’T know how much she can reveal of the third season that I’m now asking her about. Currently, the series release date is still just over a month away…and as the speculation amps up, so does Lola’s loyalty to her NDA. As we discuss how she feels as the countdown to the season premiere begins, she states firmly that her nerves are no longer the dominant emotion. “I’m very, very proud of everything that we did. I feel so happy with all the work that we did. It’s really cool to even get to day that we have a third season. I remember filming season one so clearly and feeling like even the chance of a season TWO was so far away. It’s crazy that we’re here now. So there are some nerves, but also a sense of peace and pride.”

When we left Belly at the season two finale, we saw her at a new beginning. One where she defiantly decided to reclaim her life back, to no longer linger as a choice between two men. That was two years ago…and the time-lapse doesn’t just affect our binge-watching habits. “The audience can expect a little more maturity,” she begins with caution. “We had a whole year off filming because of the [SAG-AFTRA] strike. So there was a jump in time in the story and with us. I think it’s gonna be really cool because I think it’s a noticeable shift. I’m very excited,” she says with an exaggerated gulp. “I’m just so excited for everyone to see how these relationships have changed in that time jump and how their growth and maturity levels affect those relationships,” she concludes, sitting back more comfortably in her chair. 

For now, Lola is fine to stay safe and sound outside of the future. Instead, she looks back at just how far she’s come. “Every year of my teens, there was always something exciting to look back on. But especially from 17 onwards, at the end of every year, I’d constantly go, ‘A year ago, I never would have expected that this would happen.’ And it’s crazy to be able to say that at the end of every year,” she notices. I can’t help but wonder if there is anything specific she would want to achieve in the next year that would spark the same reaction. 

She looks at me and smiles. “I don’t know, but that’s a great question. And I think I need to figure that out.” 

Well, chartering the unknown has certainly worked for her so far…