Photo: Freeform

After becoming Freeform’s biggest hit in its first season, Cruel Summer is back for Season 2. A new mystery in a new town, this season is set in a different time period, with the story unfolding in Summer 1999, Winter 1999, and Summer 2000. I talked to Lexi Underwood, who plays Isabella, about how she approached playing Isabella, her love for 90s R&B, and how Megan and Isabella define “ride or die” differently.

I’ve talked to Sadie about feelings about supposed supposedly Isabella and Megan are ride or die. I feel like Megan never trusts Isabella or gives her the benefit of the doubt. Do you think they were ever truly friends or was it kind of a keep your “friends close, your enemies closer situations” for Megan or Isabella?

I think that the girls are truly friends but the issue is that they both have a very different definition of what ride or die means to them. And I think that Isabella specifically hasn’t necessarily learned how to be in a healthy friendship without kind of being attached or obsessed. And I think that that goes back to kind of trauma when she talks about her relationship with her parents she kind of feels  as though she needs to go to extreme lengths or do anything to keep those around her that love her to accept her and to validate her. And so we see that with Megan where Isabelle is willing to go to literally ride or die, if it means like actual like death even, but for Megan, Megan is more chill. She just sees it as a thing where she can pop in and out of and I think that’s really interesting navigating the difference between how they both view the friendship.

I was talking about it was Sadie earlier but it’s similar to you. A lot of the roles that you’ve done previously are based on real people or are on based on books so there’s already an idea of them, there’s already that back material. But Isabella is all you. You’re the first and only iteration of her. How did you come about creating her? Because even her look  I feel like is influenced by like a lot of R&B  singers from the 90s each timeline. How did you go about creating her?

Originally when I first got the role of Isabella I sat down and I created a Venn diagram between Isabella and I, so I can start off with the base of the similarities versus differences between Isabel and I. And then I went on and did Venn diagram between Megan and Isabella, and Isabella and Luke, and that helped me really understand and navigate the relationships. Doing the Venn diagram between her and myself made me understand that they’re way more similarities than differences between us and it was able to help me pull something out of me in my regular life and bring that into one of Isabella. 

But it’s really cool because I haven’t thought of it that way and this is kind of like the first time I’m able to create a character from scratch. And Isabelle is a very complex character at that there are so many different layers to her and over the span of 10 episodes as you know we filmed more and more not only has the script come in but I just got to spend more time with her. She’s a very interesting person, very flawed and she has a lot of things but I think that we see it start to crack over a period of time. I’m trying not to give away what those things are but she’s very complex and it was cool to be able to create her.

The soundtrack to the show is incredible and is one of my favorite time periods of music.  What’s some of your favorite music from that time period like 99  to 2000. Not to quote Juvenile.

I would say definitely Aaliyah,  Destiny’s Child, Britney Spears, 112, Boys II Men, Biggie, Lil Kim Tupac, Diddy, Bad Boy.

So this [music] is like Spotify playlist?

Yes, this is my Spotify playlist. All of it. I’m just obsessed with everything 90s, especially the music. So it’s really cool be to able to hear it in the soundtrack

It’s funny to see the Summer 99 version of Isabella, she reminds me of Scary Spice with the hair.

Yeah, that was the inspo I came up with like a little Pinterest mood board and that’s what we came up with Scary Spice [Summer ’99], Aaliyah [Winter ’99] and then I don’t know what the third timeline is. The third timeline is very Isabella, yeah, very real.

Cruel Summer is on Mondays on Freeform.