Cruel Summer: Griffin Gluck Talks ‘Private Practice’ Reunion and Tackling an Anthology Series [Interview]

This interview contains spoilers for Cruel Summer Season 1 Episode 1, “Welcome to Chatham,” and Cruel Summer Season 1 Episode 2, “Ride or Die.”

At ATX Television Festival, Griffin Gluck spoke with reporters about his new show, Cruel Summer. Gluck plays Luke, who comes from a wealthy family and is best friends with Sadie Stanley’s character, Megan.

On Cruel Summer, Gluck is reunited with two of his Private Practice co-stars, Paul Adelstein and KaDee Strickland. Gluck was thrilled to be working with both of them again.

“The reunion was awesome. I haven’t seen Paul and KaDee for a long time. We had seen each other after Private Practice ended on a few occasions a handful of times but nothing really substantial as what we did on set.”

Gluck laughed and continued, “I think Paul and KaDee were a little freaked out that — the last time they saw me was when I was about this tall [gestures]. And this time we met up at like a steak house, and I ordered a whiskey sour or maybe like an old fashioned, and they were like ‘What is going on with you? Who are you? Who have you become?'”

“But other than that, it’s fantastic. I love working with them again, seeing them again.”

Like his co-star Stanley, Gluck enjoyed the anthology aspect of Cruel Summer.

“I actually found it pretty enticing that we weren’t coming back for a third season, or that we weren’t coming back just because it gave us an opportunity to tell our version of the story and then move on.”

“Obviously, there’s something to be said about job security [laughs] with another season, and that’s always fun. But it definitely raised the stakes for us to the point where it’s like, ‘This is our one and only shot, so let’s make sure we deliver the best season that we could possibly deliver,'” Gluck stated.

Cruel Summer Season 2 takes place during three time periods: Summer 1999, Winter 1999, and Summer 2000. Gluck noted that Luke doesn’t believe all the paranoia surrounding the new millennia.

“My character didn’t really give a heck about Y2K. He didn’t really care. He was convinced everyone was a nutcase that believed in it.” Gluck continued, “Luke was just throwing parties, end-of-the-world parties. He was just there to have a good time.”

When I pointed out that the year 2000 doesn’t go well for Luke, Gluck added, “This is true. It was the end of his world.”

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Check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. There is a lot more to come!

Cruel Summer airs Mondays at 10/9c on Freeform.

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