Cruel Summer Season 2: Lexi Underwood Talks ’90s Nostalgia, Complex Character Isabella, and Iconic Hairstyles

After the first season of Cruel summer kept us in suspense, we didn’t want to miss season 2!

We’re especially excited to have one of our favorite young actresses, Lexi Underwood, starring this season. Cruel summer, the highest-rated series in Freeform history, returns to Freeform for its second season TONIGHT. The anthology series features a brand new cast and a new mystery. Check out the trailer below:

Set in an idyllic coastal town in the Pacific Northwest, the next chapter of Cruel Summer follows the rise and fall of an intense teenage friendship. Approaching the story from three different timelines around the year 2000, the season twists and turns as it follows the early friendship between Megan, Isabella and Megan’s best friend Luke, the blossoming love triangle and the mystery that will affect their entire future lives should.

Janeé Bolden, Sr. Content Director of BOSSIP, caught up with Lexi Underwood at a this weekend Cruel summer At the season 2 premiere in Atlanta, the pair discussed what it was like for Underwood to be making the first show for her age group, in which she played the “wild child” Isabella, the inspiration for her character’s hairstyles and the Shoot a tiny bikini for some scenes.

Check out their questions and answers below:

BOSSIP: This role is so different from any we’ve seen of you before. Can you tell us what made you want to play Isabella?

Lexi Underwood: It’s definitely why I was so excited to start telling the story. It was exciting. I played the same age as me. Isabella was 18, I was 18 during filming and all those things… I think it just felt like the parties, all that stuff, it just kind of felt normal to me. Now that I’ve stepped back and looked at it, it really is so different from anything else I’ve done. But I think that’s cool, especially because I’m 19, so it’s great to be able to reach Gen Z audiences. Everything I’ve done before – Sneakerella was geared more towards younger children. First Lady und Little Fires were aimed at an older audience so now I can tap into a different market that I belong to and I’m really looking forward to that.

BOSSIP: How fun is it to be on a show where nobody really knows Exactly What happened until you know all the pieces have been put together?

Lexi Underwood: It was fun. It was a bit of a challenge at times because as an actor it’s a bit difficult to stay on track and you want to make sure you’re doing a good job and trust your instincts. But it’s a little tricky when you know you’re shooting summer 2000 scenes, and so you don’t necessarily know what actually happened or what happened on specific nights they’re talking about until you actually get there. As an actor, you just hope that you’re making the right decisions. But I think with such a great team behind us it was obviously the same team from season one so they knew how to navigate us and guide us through the season. It was definitely challenging, but also so much fun. We made up little theories every time we got a new script and we were always wrong. So it was fun when we finally got the scripts for the last episode. I think only one person got it right, and half the cast members still don’t even know, so the one person who guessed that has pluses.

Quelle: Justine Yeung / Freeform

BOSSIP: The Y2K factor is huge considering you’re not even born yet – what do you think this obsession with the 90’s is all about right now? There are so many shows that are set in the 90’s. What’s up with the 90s?

Lexi Underwood: I think that each generation draws inspiration from the previous one. It was in the 90’s and early 2000’s That 70’s show And in that time we’ve seen a lot of influences from the 70’s and now we’re harking back to the 90’s and the Y2K vibe. All these trends are coming back. Many of these icons are still alive and still making music or creating art, so we’re always connected to them. Pinterest and TikTok and the power of social media are bringing all of that back. I follow a 90s nostalgia tiktok page and looking back at these pages it looked like such a fun time. I’m very jealous that I couldn’t be there, but I’m glad that as an actor I can live out these dreams, so to speak, and immerse myself in this world.

Quelle: Frank Ockenfels / Freeform

BOSSIP: What did you enjoy most about playing Isabella? I think in today’s world people would probably say, “Oh, she’s a bad bitch,” right?

Lexi Underwood: Yes! I really liked her wardrobe, but I just love the fact that Isabella is so different from me. She’s so confident, she’s charming, she’s alluring, she’s unconventional and I don’t think of myself as the type to fall by the wayside. I’m rather shy and reserved. Being able to play with it and play with the fun different looks in summer ’99 and then even winter ’99 and step into a completely different version of her where she was kind of in this messed up state. You see that she is taking control of her destiny, that she is more comfortable in her own skin, that she has shed her mask, and in the summer of 2000 we see everything unraveling. But I just love the fact that she is such a complex and multifaceted person. There are so many things at any one time that we feel like we know something about them. There’s always something new to discover, it just keeps evolving.

Quelle: Justine Yeung / Freeform

BOSSIP: When a woman changes her hairstyle, you know she changes her life. So I was interested in your thoughts on why Isabella is transitioning from the big curly look to a more demure dark sleek look.

Lexi Underwood: It was interesting because it was a collaborative process. I was very lucky to be able to bring Marva Stokes and shout out to her. She was my hairdresser Little fires everywhere So she had already worked with me when it came to creating ’90s-inspired looks. When we got into the hair trailer, I showed her a nod to “Scary Spice” for the first timeline, simply because I felt like Isabella was just so out there in that timeline. She is very free. She says in the first episode that she’s not really the school type, but more of a student of life. So she has this attitude and I think she’s living her best life with her hair and her outfits, all the bright colors, and I think we’re showing that.

Then, in the second timeline, I referred to Aaliyah because I just felt like she was sinking in more than she was able to shed the facade of feeling like she always had to be perfect. She’s more relaxed, wears more jeans. We rarely see her in a dress, except for the Christmas party. But yeah, she’s just become more relaxed and reserved and started to feel more like herself.

Quelle: Justine Yeung / Freeform

Then when we get to the third timeline, I think we all know that when we’re going through something, sometimes we don’t feel like doing our hair. So I didn’t necessarily know exactly what curl pattern we should have chosen, for example the normal curls again but without the blonde. Then I thought that especially with her hair straightened and being in Chatham, it feels like she’s also trying to be a chameleon and blend in because the town she lives in isn’t all that great there is a lot of variety. I felt like maybe we could show that her hair went through a bit of that, from the constant back and forth between straightening her hair and trying to match everyone else’s. Also, she always wears it in a ponytail. She doesn’t necessarily feel like doing much with it because she’s going through a lot at this point. To be honest, it was one of my favorite looks out of all three. I thought it was really pretty, even though she’s still going through something.

BOSSIP: We’ve been talking about how different Isabella is from you and that she’s a little bit out there, so we’ve got some sex scenes, there’s some bikinis. Can you talk about putting yourself in your comfort zone for scenes like this?

Lexi Underwood: To be honest I was a bit nervous, I can’t lie. Just because I wasn’t necessarily in a bathing suit I think I’ve ever been on screen before. But everyone was scared, including the rest of the cast, so we could just talk to each other and cheer each other up and say, “Girl you look good, like you don’t have to worry, you look good.” But yeah, this character really pushed me out of my comfort zone which was fun. All the looks are really cute, it was fun to change them up.

The highly anticipated second season of the hit anthology series Cruel summer will debut tonight, Monday, June 5 at 9:00 p.m. EDT on Freeform with a special two-episode premiere before switching to the regular series at 10:00 p.m. Time window.