INTERVIEW: Sarah Drew Dishes on the New Hit Series ‘Cruel Summer,’ and Gives a Closer Look at Her Role as Cindy Turner

Sarah Drew stars alongside Chiara Aurelia (Jeanette Turner) and Olivia Holt (Kate Wallis) in the new Freeform psychological thriller, Cruel Summer, executive produced by Jessica Biel and airing each Tuesday at 10 pm ET and 7 pm PT on Freeform. Sarah is best known for her work on Grey’s Anatomy and returns to the role of April Kepner in the May 6 episode, “Look Up Child,” alongside Jessie Williams.

Sarah (Cindy Turner) plays the mother of Jeanette as the series follows the disappearance of the town’s most popular girl, Kate. Cindy isn’t handling her daughter’s awkward adolescence well as she’s the direct opposite of what her own high school life was like as the one who had Kate’s mom following her around, or so she says.

In the suspenseful two hour premiere which aired on April 20, we see Jeanette change from an awkward nerdy teen to taking over Kate’s life including best friends and boyfriend, until Kate unexpectedly returns by episode two and everyone has questions. When Kate is pointing fingers at Jeanette as someone who knew all along that she was abducted, the chaos begins and Jeanette’s world begins to literally crumble.

The series spans three summers in the ’90s simultaneously which makes for great TV. Not to worry on keeping up because the production and writing are amazing and you will soon adapt to the intense shifts for each year. Get ready to expect the unexpected.

Sarah chatted with us at Glitter and shared her love for Chiara and Olivia, working with amazing female showrunners, more on Cindy Turner and what her character’s real motivations are, as well as some of her favorite ’90s trends. Read on for more and be sure to watch our video interview below or on Youtube.

GLITTER: Congrats on Cruel Summer. I seriously can’t look away. It’s just so good. 
SARAH: Thank you. I am such a big fan. I mean, it’s so funny because it’s really like Chiara and Olivia’s show and they are so stunning and so amazing. I also cannot take my eyes away. So I’m happy to get to be along for the ride on this one.

GLITTER: Tell us about your role as Cindy Turner, mom to Jeanette, and how is she similar or not so similar to her daughter?
SARAH: So Cindy Turner was a homecoming queen and popular girl, head of the cheerleading squad, as she puts it, is the one that had a line of people out the door asking to take her out. I think she sort of is a little desperate to relive her glory days, sort of through her daughter, who definitely, especially in 1993, is not who Cindy was in her teenage years. So, I think there is for Cindy, a lot of her identity is tied up in how successful her family is and her children are. I think she’d like to be a bit more successful in that department. So so when things start to crumble, it really does a number on her. 

GLITTER: Absolutely. How is Cindy handling it all, as things spiral out of control, from the gossip and what she learns and or speculates about Jeanette in relation to Kate’s disappearance? 
SARAH: I think there’s there’s certainly a lot of drama in the family dynamics. I think what you begin to learn about that dynamic is that Jeanette and her dad have always been two peas in a pod. Mom has always been a little bit reactive. So, when there are certain things that Jeanette, like the secrets that Jeanette and Dad keep, that they don’t let Mom know and they know Mom’s going to freak out. I think everybody can relate to that in some way. I mean, that is a very honest, real family dynamic scenario where there is a family member there that you’re like, no, no, we’re not going to let her in on that or him in on that, that’s just… It’s going to be bad for everybody. So let’s not. (laughing). So, yeah. I think when you have your identity that is dependent on somebody else’s success, it does not set you up for a healthy success or emotionally successful life. Which I think you know, I think a lot of moms and daughters out there are going to be able to relate to this story in some way. I mean, the mother-daughter relationship is such a complicated one with so many layers. 

GLITTER: The show really captures a lot of coming of age moments, some awkward, some more haunting than others. Do you think that with society changing to be more accepting, that maybe it’ll influence teens for the better, to have less awkward moments and more empowerment?
SARAH: I hope so. You know, for me, actually, the thing that I hope teens will take away from this show is sort of the warning about making snap judgments. You know, in the ’90s, it was pre-social media. But you see this story… I mean, the thing that keeps this drama of the story going is that a rumor is spoken, and everybody believes it, and then worlds fall apart. Everyone believes it before investigating it. Like Jeanette gets punched in the face before even having a moment to speak about it. So there is a real danger in hearing something and then deciding it’s true before stopping, listening, and getting curious about it. I think we see it, and especially teens watching the show see it on such an extreme level on social media; there’s so much online bullying. But you also see it in the news. You see it in the news cycles. Like I follow this fact-checker named Daniel Dale, who’s constantly like, “…and this person just said a whole bunch of garbage based on absolute no truth…no truth,” like, you know, and it’s just like this happens all the time, and it leads to such destruction. So what I hope and what I think that the show really does investigate is the real… It’s a cautionary tale, the real danger of making a snap judgment. 

GLITTER: Absolutely. It’s exposing it all. I love that. What initially attracted you to Cruel Summer and how excited were you to work with such amazing female talent like Olivia and Chiara and Jessica Biel? 
SARAH: I was introduced to this project by the showrunner, Tia Napolitano, who I love and adore and worked with for years on Grey’s Anatomy. So she reached out to me and was like, you’re about to get an offer for the show. They’re only sending you the pilot. I promise you, there’s a really interesting journey that Cindy takes. Talk to me. I want to tell you all about it. So I got on the phone with her and I heard all about it and I was like, “Done. I’m in.” I also heard amazing things about Bill and Michelle Purple, who are our fabulous producer and director team there on the ground, also an enormous fan of The Sinner, Jessica Biel’s other show with Michelle Purple. So I was like, I know we’re in good hands. I’ve heard amazing things about the leadership. When leadership is wonderful, the experience on set is wonderful. I know that to be true. And then the delight and joy of getting on set and encountering the phenomenal talents of all of this young cast. I mean, everybody is phenomenal, but especially I get to work with Chiara so much. I love her so much because she is this absolute powerhouse, enormous talent. But even more so, her heart is like the size of Texas. She is dedicated to not only doing a fantastic job, but also being a fantastic leader, including everyone, never wanting anyone to feel left out, always being a cheerleader for every single human, like connecting people relationally so that everybody is part of the team, you know, she’s just such a good human. So it was just a joy. It was. It was just a joy to share the screen with her for sure. 

GLITTER: That’s great. What were some of the challenges of working across three consecutive summers in the ’90s simultaneously? 
SARAH: I think that the production team did an incredible job of differentiating, both in terms of different hairstyles, different energy. I mean, the acting, the performance of these two girls, but even the whole supporting cast as well, they change. They all change in very significant and specific ways across the timeline. But then after they put the show together, putting different color-coding on each different time period so that your eyes start to just follow. “Oh, no, I’m in 93 and 94.” “Oh, she’s got the short hair. That’s 95.” You know, like you start to pick it up without needing to be told. And I think that there was anxiety about it on set. “Is this going to work?” (laughing) But it seems like it’s super, it’s like working. People are loving it and totally, totally tracking.

GLITTER: What was fun about having a ’90’s timestamp? Do you have any favorite ’90s trends that you still own? 
SARAH: Oh my gosh. Well, I was a teenager in the ’90s, so I was so excited specifically about the music. When The Cranberries come on, I’m just like, “Stop it,” I used to sing The Cranberries in a coffee shop with a friend when I was in high school. I was so excited about that stuff. I wore the chokers for sure. When we did the premiere, they outfitted these hotel rooms that we watched the premiere from with all this ’90s paraphernalia, and I’m like looking at magazine cutouts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I’m like, “Oh, my show!” (laughing)  

GLITTER: (laughing)
SARAH: I was depressed for days when an Angel went bad again; I was depressed for days. (laughing) So yeah, there’s a lot in there. And it was funny I came home with a bunch of the stuff that they had given us for the premiere, and my daughter was dressed head to toe in a full ’90s outfit that was a hand-me-down from a friend. So she looked fully ’90s and then she was wearing a choker and she had her hair back scratchy, and she was sitting in the big inflatable sparkly chair. I was like, “You’re just like a little tiny teenager right now from the ’90s and I love it so much.

GLITTER: I love that so much. That’s so cute. Were you able to give Olivia and Chiara any helpful tips about growing up during the ’90s?  
SARAH: Oh, you know, I didn’t I didn’t talk to them much about the ’90s. You know, I’ve talked to Chiara a lot about being a woman in this industry and navigating what it is to be in a position of leadership and how to lead well, and like those kinds of things, we’ve talked a lot about the pressures and the anxieties that come with all of this stuff. So in a way, we’ve developed a very, very sweet kind of relationship in that way. But I didn’t really spend much time talking to them about the ’90s.

GLITTER: Did you talk to them about acting tips or life tips?   
SARAH:  Those girls don’t need any help. (laughing)

GLITTER:  Yeah…(laughing)
SARAH:  I didn’t work with Olivia very much, I adore her, but we only had one scene together. I mostly had all my screen time with Chiara. So we would talk about our different processes. And it’s funny like she enters into a specific kind of scene differently than I do in some cases, but similarly in other cases. It’s just fun to be chatting with the younger generation about this stuff and also like the fact that she cares so much about being a person of integrity, not just about like grabbing the next thing or what’s this going to do for me or how much can I get from this? But really about how do I love this community well, so that people, every single person across the board, has a positive experience. For someone who’s 18 years old to be thinking along those lines, I’m just like blown away by it, by the person that she is. So it was really sweet to kind of get to dive into a little bit of that stuff with her. 

GLITTER: Awesome. Sarah, what’s next for you? 
SARAH:  I do have something that I’m working on that involves being a bit more behind the camera well, in front and behind, but that I’m pretty excited about, but it’s not officially official, so I can’t talk about it yet. But I’m developing a show as well that I’m about to start taking out. So it’s, you know, I’m living in a very creative space right now of like coming up with my own stuff and my own stories that I want to tell while also homeschooling my children. (laughing)

GLITTER: That’s a really big job. 
SARAH: They’re still social distance learning. (laughing) So it’s a very full time in my life right now. And I’m really enjoying just the delight and excitement about Cruel Summer and about the Grey’s Anatomy episode coming out. So it’s fun. Yeah. 

GLITTER: Awesome. Well, I wish you luck with your projects and your kids. Thank you so much for chatting with Glitter today, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
SARAH: Thank you so much.