Violet McGraw, Sophia Bush, and Jerry O’Connell Reflect On Explosions, Improvising, and Breaking Character In Summer’s Last Resort

In Summer’s Last Resort, a type-A teen accidentally turns her family’s vacation upside down trying to break up the relationship between her free-spirited mom and her corny vice principal. In a conversation with Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado, Violet McGraw, Sophia Bush, and Jerry O’Connell reflect on career lessons, behind-the-scenes laughs, and the enduring legacies of fan-favorite projects like John Tucker Must Die and Sliders.

Eight years ago audiences were first introduced to McGraw in The Haunting Of Hill House. That memorable role helped jumpstart her career in the horror genre, leading to starring roles in M3GAN and its sequel. But Summer’s Last Resort marks her first foray into comedy. “Oh my gosh, such a long time ago. I got a lot of great advice and, just by watching actors on that set, I've learned so much on Haunting,” she said about what she took away from her very first on-screen role. “Mike Flanagan, who is just the best, was so patient with me. It really helped us get through filming and made everything a lot smoother because of what a great director he was and how patient he was with six-year-olds, which was really crazy. I realized that [when] you're patient, everything's smoother. You just you want to be kind to everybody on set, treat everybody with respect.”

Every project offers an opportunity to learn something new and Summer’s Last Resort was no exception. “[I] learned a lot from these guys on this film. Trust your instincts. It's okay to improv and just fully commit because, when you fully dive into a scene and a character, it feels way more real on the screen,” McGraw explained what she learned from Bush and O’Connell. “That advice not only helped me on that set, but I'm going to take that advice with me to all my other projects.”

Bush was proud of her on-screen daughter’s willingness to embrace the challenge. “Something that I loved [was] when you showed up, you were comfortable enough to be vulnerable and say, ‘I've never done a comedy before. I'm nervous.’ When I was coming up, the advice was always, ‘Fake it till you make it.’ I'd follow people around and be like, ‘What is a mark? Where am I supposed to be?’ but I was scared to ask,” said Bush. “You asked really good questions and then it put us in a position where we could be like, ‘Oh, let's play improv games. Let's do this take up and then let's do this take a little this way and a little that way.’ We played as a group and I think you see that energy that we all found as friends and co-workers on screen because we feel like a family. I was so impressed with the way that you just showed up and were so willing to dive in. I'm so proud of you.”

“You come to set always with a smile on your face and eager to work,” added O’Connell. “I'm just a little angrier when I come to work, especially in the mornings. A lot of early mornings on this — like super early — and I get very puffy under my eyes early in the morning and I need those things under my eyes. You just have such a good attitude and I'm going to try and carry that with me to my next job.”

With so many crazy antics going on in Summer’s Last Resort, it allowed the trio to tap into physical comedy stunts. “The most challenging thing to do on set… you know what? I know what it was. We have a large fire scene, a borderline explosion, that involves Sophia Bush and Violet McGraw,” said O’Connell. “They're on camera for it. And you know what? It was a little scary. It was an explosion. It was real.”

“A funny moment is when me and Jerry are trying to save a dolphin,” added McGraw. Jerry kept improvising this one line. I don't know if you remember it and it kept making me laugh.”

“Spoiler alert: A dolphin dies and we attempt to resuscitate it in Summer's Last Resort,” O’Connell continued. “It was a fake dolphin and I was slapping it, urging it to wake up and not go to the light at the end of the tunnel and to come back.”

When asked which actor was the most likely to make everyone break on set, both Bush and McGraw immediately pointed at O’Connell and burst into laughter. “When you're around teenage girls, sorry to assign gender and sorry to assign age here, but I am the father of teenage girls,” explained O’Connell. “If you can make a teenage girl laugh that is some funny stuff that you have because they just don't break. They just don't laugh. It's my job to make my daughters laugh and to make Violet McGraw laugh. If I do, then I know I'm doing something right.”

Bush is no stranger to comedy and reflected on her earlier work, noting that this project felt like a return to her roots. Her teen classic John Tucker Must Die celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. “We had the time of our lives working together that summer,” said Bush. “All the girls were so amazing. Brittany Snow and I. We were sort of going through similar situations, so we also had that great on-set experience and then like we just hit the ground running off-set together. I'm so proud of her and so happy for her for all of the things happening in her life right now. It feels kind of incredible because when I started as an actor, I really was doing a lot of comedy and to come back around to it, it's my first love. To be celebrating a movie like this on the anniversary of that, it just feels really sparkly.”

Meanwhile, Summer’s Last Resort isn’t O’Connell’s only project on Tubi. His 1995 series Sliders is now available on the platform and he’s eager for a reboot. “I'm so glad you brought this up. Shout out to Tubi. I was in a science fiction show called Sliders, okay? It was the first multi-dimensional television show before Marvel was doing it,” he explained. “Each episode we traveled to a different dimension of Earth and we experienced it and had to get out. It is as good as science fiction shows get. It is now exclusively streaming on Tubi. I've been meaning to post about it and everything.”

O’Connell revealed there is a “great” pitch that exists, but rights issues could be a hurdle. “Listen, I know I was sort of grilling Sophia about a One Tree Hill reboot and Sophia was like, ‘We're not talking about that. We're talking about Summer's Last Resort.’ Sophia's way more professional,” he joked. “My good friend Colton Dunn, incredible actor and writer, has come up with a great premise. There is a question of getting rights to it. I believe Universal has the rights. I personally can't afford the rights ‘cause financially I'm going through something right now. My credit… not the best. Not good credit. I went through one foreclosure and my credit is gone. So, I personally can't get the rights. […] Let's reboot it. Tubi, Sliders. Let's do it. Not rebooting One Tree Hill, but rebooting Sliders. It was a great pitch.”

You can catch both Summer’s Last Resort and Sliders streaming now on Tubi.