When Abigail Cowen was auditioning for the role of Delilah Mason in the screen adaptation of Carley Fortune’s bestselling novel, Every summer Aftershe didn’t actually know what she was auditioning for. “They had the show under a code name, and it wasn’t until we went to the final read-through with all the producers and executives that I found out,” Cowen tells the Observer about landing the part in the recently released series. Every year After. The Florida-born actress immediately picked up the book after that final audition and would continue to return to Fortune’s debut novel over the next four months of filming in Vancouver. This foundation helped Cowen capture Delilah, whose role as protagonist Percy Fraser’s childhood best friend is greatly expanded in the series, both in her new flashbacks and in her present-day life in Barry’s Bay.
“You can think about your character all day long, but once you really get into the costumes and get on the set, it comes,” says Cowen, who also spent time talking through ideas with the showrunner. Amy B. Harris. “I wanted to figure out how to make Delilah layered because we go deeper into her story in the show, and we also go back to when she was young and see what made her who she is now,” she adds. Cowen, who plays Delilah on screen from her late teenage years to age 28 in the first season of Every year Afterwill reprise her role in the recently announced second season of the series based on Fortune’s book A golden summer as well. “I feel like it’s not very often that you get to dive into who the character was when they were young, and it really helped to discover new things about her.”
Having previously worked on book-to-screen adaptations across film and television (including the 2018 comic book-based series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Cowen is no stranger to the pressure of living up to fan expectations. But aside from a few extra worries before filming and again before the premiere, it’s a challenge she thoroughly enjoys. “There’s a responsibility to this already built-in fan base, and you want to do it justice for everybody,” Cowen says, admitting that she always gets nervous about what the fans will think. “But at the end of the day, everyone’s version of a character in a book is different,” she explains. “You imagine the person differently, you imagine the story differently, so the nice thing is that there’s still creative freedom as an actor; it’s also through your eyes now.”
After a stormy press week for Every year Afterofficial release on Amazon Prime (and before she left to begin filming her next project, guide), the Observer caught up with Abigail Cowen to chat about her current essentials—from moisturizer that doesn’t irritate her sensitive skin to her dinner order while filming the show in Vancouver.
