Brianne Tju had her reservations about the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” remake.
“When I got the audition, I was a little hesitant at first, because there’s been so many reboots — everything gets rebooted, and sometimes it’s a hit, sometimes it’s a miss, so it can be a little scary,” says Tju, who stars in the Amazon’s miniseries remake of the iconic ’90s horror franchise. The show, which premiered in mid-October, will release its finale episode on Nov. 12.
After talking with showrunner Sara Goodman (of original “Gossip Girl” fame) about her vision for the show, Tju was won over. The reboot would be rooted in kitschy ’90s horror, but with a more contemporary sensibility. “Every character has this incredible duality. Everyone has secrets, everyone is guilty. And I feel like in the past, horror movies often rely on tropes as characters for the story to kill off.”
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Tju stars in the campy series as Margo, a well-off teen wrapped up in the mystery of the past-summer events. “I think right off the bat, people want to compare her to the Sarah Michelle Gellar character from the first movie,” Tju says. “Margo’s popular. She’s fabulous. She’s very wealthy. She always has something sassy to say. She’s the life of the party.” Also, a social media influencer. “The depiction of herself that she’s putting online is very much a mask. And she feeds off the validation and attention, which we all do to some extent on social media.”
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The 23-year-old actress, who previously starred in Hulu’s teen horror series “Light as a Feather,” appreciates that the genre is rooted in exaggerated emotion. “I think that’s why people love horror so much, because it’s very much an escape. It gets your heart pumping, there’s this thrill to it. It’s like being on a roller coaster, but you can do it from your couch.”
She has several other projects on the horizon, including a Blumhouse film for Epix and “The Cow” opposite Winona Ryder. For now, Tju is in Atlanta, where she recently began filming ‘’Uglies” for Netflix with Joey King. The upcoming teen series is based on Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 dystopian YA novel. The premise of the story — in many ways ahead of its time — is that everyone is obligated to get drastic plastic surgery when they turn 16, in order to become beautiful. Tju’s character rebels against the status quo.
“[The story] is very, very relevant right now, especially in the age of social media. So I think it’s a perfect time that we’re making this,” says Tju, who notes that she tries to keep her own social media presence minimal, “for the sake of my mental health,” although she is active on Instagram.
Tju, one of five siblings, began acting when she was a child as a way for her parents, both immigrants, to supplement their college funds. (Her sister, Haley Tju, is also a professional actress.) “They never expected us to keep going and pursue a career in it. But I immediately fell in love with it,” she says. “I’m really fortunate that I found my passion so early on in life. And also, joke’s on my parents — because I dropped out of college three times.”