‘Every Year After’ Star Joseph Chiu on Season 1 Reception and Season 2

“I was screaming in my bedroom when they called me at 10 a.m.,” Every Year After star Joseph Chiu says of getting the news that Prime Video had renewed the romance series for a second season.

The 24-year-old Canadian actor plays Jordie Lin in the streamer’s adaptation of the Carley Fortune romance novel Every Summer After, which was released last month. In the weeks after the release, Prime Video announced that Every Year After would be returning for season two and follow Fortune’s follow-up, Our Golden Summer.

In Fortune’s book, Chiu’s character, the best friend of Matt Cornett’s leading man, plays a much smaller role, which allowed the actor some space to find his own Jordie. “I was fully committed to the best friend role and doing the best of my abilities to make Sam seem more well-adjusted,” he says. “I really like Stiles from Teen Wolf. There were a lot of references that I was trying to get that energy of in terms of the best friend [character].”

The actor was fresh from his college graduation when he booked the part, and he wasn’t exactly expecting things to happen so quickly. He found his way into acting during school after he swapped majors. It also wasn’t the first time he’d had a bit of a pivot.

When he was 14, he was a K-pop trainee under Korean entertainment company FNC Entertainment. “I was a trainee for three months,” he says. “I actually did pretty well in that program, but then my mom wanted me to finish high school and finish college.”

Below, Chiu discusses making season one, what he’s hoping for in season two and how he feels about Canada’s recent film and television spotlight.

Were you feeling good after the first season? Were you hopeful?

Honestly, with these things, I have no clue. I was on a show called Motorheads where I did a five-episode arc, and it seemed like people were very excited about season two. But then we didn’t get renewed. I was just happy with how season one worked out for me because the way that I was cast was just crazy in itself. I was just grateful to have work as an actor.

You auditioned for a different role, correct? You were just graduating from university, right? When did it all hit you?

Honestly, I think everything hit me after the show released. Up until then, I was just so obsessed with the whole preparation aspect of the character and really trying to justify the choices that I made with the character. I poured a lot of myself into this role of Jordie. As a 23-year-old still trying to shop for personalities, it was a little difficult and very vulnerable for me, at least, to decide how much of myself I wanted to actually show. This was my first series regular role, and I’ve never been flown out for a role before. I’ve always worked in Toronto or Hamilton. Once I arrived on set, the first day Amy [B. Harris] invited me to just go see the set. I was a little shy, honestly. But then my first scene was actually my audition scene as Jordie. Once I started doing that, it just became fun again. There was zero pressure to get it right just because, specifically for me, Jordie’s not a character really in the book that much. It was just really going moment to moment and really trying to make. I’m just trying to be as present as possible with the two actresses on the day, which was Sadie and Aurora.

What was that shooting experience like? What are you hoping for this next season in that regard?

Shooting on Bowen Island was beautiful. We took a boat to work every morning. I struggle with allergies, so I was drugged out of my mind on antihistamines. It made me feel a little drowsy, so I drank a lot of black coffee. In terms of the island itself, it’s really beautiful. I think it’s quite similar to Barry’s Bay, although I’ve never been, so I can’t really be saying.

Carly seemed happy with the similarities, so we can take her word for that.

What I will say, though, is that it reminded me of where my grandmother used to live, which was Wellington, New Zealand. There’s just a sense of peace and boredom. There’s a big sense of boredom. But honestly, that’s what I’ve realized, now in hindsight, that’s a sense of safety. You know how people say touch grass?

Yeah.

I was touching grass every day for three and a half months, so it was pretty awesome.

Where do you think Jordie’s at going forward?

I like this question because I can just become the writer now.

Let’s hear some of your fan fiction.

My PR answer is that that’s a great question for our showrunner, but what I want to prescribe with the power I have, as one of the actors, would just be, I’d like to see Jordie and Chantal in an actual relationship. Aurora and I, we have a certain kind of chemistry where it can become kind of comedic, but then immediately we can go to the depths of seriousness and just really talk about some cool stuff. As for Delilah, I don’t know, I kind of have in real life, there’s a childhood crush and it was unrequited love. I’d like to use that and try to draw on that and maybe build up this moment of confrontation with Delilah of all these feelings that Jordie has buried. The way the ending scene of her looking, it’s exciting for me as an actor because I’m just excited to entertain all of the possibilities in terms of the stakes. Now that Chantal is involved, I do want to explore the backstory between Delilah and Jordie.

They live in a small town, but Jordie’s clearly in love with her or was in love, and how Jordie has coped throughout the years. I want to see some jealousy from Jordie too in the past and how he grew into acceptance. Abby’s a really funny actor, so I think we’ll have some good comedic moments balanced out with maybe a big rain confession. I want to see Jordie sing when he was maybe 17. He got really drunk at a bar and starts saying, “Hey There Delilah.” Something like that. I think it’d be really cool.

I love that.

Also, Delilah coming to watch Jordie play a basketball game and he’s aura farming the whole time.

People are really paying attention to the Canadian film and TV industry at this moment, which I have to imagine as a young actor is quite exciting for you as a young actor.

It feels great. Alicia and I are the only Canadian actors, but Alicia is based in L.A. But if you book a series regular role on a US production that films in Toronto, your peers literally celebrate you. Because we’re Canada, we really, really put our people in the spotlight and just try to send them to go further down to Hollywood, so it’s actually insane. It’s everything I could have dreamed of. Now, for me, it’s just about celebrating my friends who are also in pursuit of this career and trying to uplift them and their talent. As Canadians, we don’t really have. The access is less. It’s less spotlight, so I’m just trying to use my platform currently to just to celebrate my friends and also people that I really admire.