Lidya Jewett Talks ‘Good Girls’ Season 3 and What’s Next for Sara [Exclusive Interview]

In 2018, Good Girls premiered with an opening montage featuring the voice of a ten-year-old girl talking about amazing women in history.

Eventually, the montage stopped on Sara Hill, who stood in front of her class with a nasal cannula around her ears and a history textbook in one hand and a lighter in another. She’s angry and she’s determined to make a statement. 

Three seasons later, the same character is growing up and starting to become aware of the illicit activities that are going on around her.

I had a chance to talk with Lidya Jewett, who plays Sara Hill, about what’s next for this wonderfully precocious character. 

Jewett is thirteen years old but has already made her mark as the young Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures, a guest star on the Nickelodeon show See Dad Run, and a series regular on Wit’s Academy.

During our chat we discussed what was in store for Sara, what it’s like on set, and how she got started in acting. 

On Good Girls, Sara’s story is the impetus for her mother Ruby (Retta) deciding to join Beth and Annie in the robbery on the pilot episode. Sara needs a kidney transplant and her parents are struggling to figure out a way to get her the medical care she deserves. 

Toward the end of Good Girls Season 2 and going into Season 3, Sara is starting to get wise about her mother’s illegal activities, and she’s exhibiting some growing pains. 

“Sara is growing up, and she’s a very smart girl. She’s going to figure it out sooner or later, and it’s going to be—I hate to say it because it sounds extreme—but it’s going to be a wild ride. It’s going to be ups and downs, it’s gonna be twists and turns, and I’m excited to see how everyone reacts to it,” Jewett said.

In the course of the first couple of seasons, her character has started to rebel in small ways, like moving “illegal” fidget spinners through her school. 

Jewett talked a bit about getting to explore some of these rebellious acts through her on-screen counterpart. 

“I never rebel. I am the rule follower, so it’s very fun to be able to do that and play that through,” Jewett explained.

One of the highlights of Good Girls is The Hill family. Many of Jewett’s favorite moments include the Hill family being together on set. 

“Retta and Reno [Wilson] are so funny, and it’s just fun to be a part of that family and to be there with them. Reno is amazing. He always keeps us laughing, he always keeps us happy, and he’s such a dad. He is a dad in real life, he has two children, and it shows. It’s just a great environment to be in.”

Jewett also discussed who she would love to play on the show besides Sara. Her answer was either Beth or Rio. 

“Although they both break rules very often they’re just strong characters and strong people, and I always wanted to portray a role like that. I feel like I would be very, not comfortable, but very happy if I could play those characters,” she said. 

Jewett got her start in Miami doing print and commercial work. She did some national commercials and then got picked up by an agency in Los Angeles. While her star is on the rise, she didn’t intentionally set out to become an actor. 

“I hate to say that it just happened, but honestly it really did just start happening. I was adopted from Ethiopia when I was four years old, so when I was in the United States, people would stop me and my family almost every day to say, ‘Oh she’s so cute she should be in commercials,’ and stuff like that.”

“That happened for about a year and then my sister finally said something like ‘If one more person comes up to us then, you don’t have to pursue it, but we should look into it.’”

From there the stars seemed to align. One more person did come up to them, and so they began looking into the business. Fortunately, they had some connections that were able to help them find the right path.

“There was this one person we knew who had a child in the business and we [said] don’t point us to the correct doors just tell us the ones we need to avoid,” Jewett recalled.

Jewett has also given some thought to what she’d like to work on for the rest of her career, and she’d like to focus on dramatic roles. 

“I always wanted roles that I could just bring myself to and that can also affect other people. With a heart connection, where I can bring my heart to it, and I can bring my emotions to it, and those emotions can affect other people,” she explained.

“The movies and TV shows that I love watching are the ones that move me in that same emotion. If I can see them doing such a great job that it moves me to feel that emotion to, it’s perfect.” 

When Jewett is not acting, she enjoys reading, photography, cooking, running, and school. “I know that’s not something you hear every day, but I love doing school. I love excelling in school, but I also love running. I’ll run all the way up and down our street for about thirty minutes and then maybe read for a little bit.”

Good Girls is just starting its third season run, and that means there’s plenty more of Sara and the rest of the Hill family to come, but that’s not the only new project that you’ll be able to catch her on. Over the summer she spent three months in Toronto filming a movie called Feel the Beat. 

“The main character is played by Sophia Carson and then there’s a whole ensemble of tween girls, which I am included in. It is a lot of dancing and I think everyone is going to love it.”

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You can catch Lidya Jewett on Good Girls airing Sundays at 10/9c on NBC.

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