Why 'Summer I Turned Pretty' heartthrob Christopher Briney went indie for his film debut
A year before he skyrocketed to heartbreaker status and social media fame overnight as the emotionally guarded Conrad Fisher on Prime Video's hit YA series "The Summer I Turned Pretty," Christopher Briney saw his future change twice in a matter of months.
"I don't know what I did in a past life to deserve work at all," Briney, 25, says self-deprecatingly over video chat from his Brooklyn, New York, apartment, remembering a time not long ago when he'd auditioned for 70 roles trying to land his first job. Once, the Connecticut native thought he might become a pro baseball player before the acting bug bit and he fell in love with film. "I think the love of doing it, or the prospect of doing it, kept me going because I don't know what else I would do," he said.
The first door opened in the spring of 2021 when director (""), lost a key actor to another project a week into production on the indie drama "," about 's twilight years in 1970s New York's Dalí, she combed acting-grad showreels and discovered the then-unknown Briney, casting him over Zoom in his film debut as James, an art-world neophyte. (The Magnolia Pictures release is in theaters and on demand now.)
