Exclusive Interview

‘Sterling Point’ Creator Megan Park on Season 2, Ramona’s Decision & More Family Secrets

What happens in Sterling Point doesn’t always stay in Sterling Point.

The coming-of-age drama series Sterling Point debuted on August 5 and instantly captivated viewers. When Annie (Ella Rubin) learns that her maternal grandfather left her and her twin, Connor (Keen Ruffalo), an island in Canada, she sets out on a journey that brings her face-to-face with her late mother’s past — and the sister she never knew existed.

Over the course of the summer, Annie grows closer to Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle), finds new friends, falls in love, and begins to realize what she truly wants in life. Meanwhile, Ramona grapples with her grief over the man who raised her, takes the leap with Oona (Bo Bragason), experiences her first breakup, and discovers her biological father is none other than Steven (Jay Duplass). In the Season 1 finale, Annie decides to stay in Sterling Point, while Ramona heads to New York with Steven and Connor.

Creator Megan Park spoke with Swooon about all things Sterling Point and what could lie ahead in a potential Season 2. From unscripted moments in Oona and Ramona’s breakup scene to her plans for Oona and Maple’s (Mabel Strachan) mother and diving into the parents’ drama, Park is more than ready to explore the next chapter. Oh, and she hinted that there are even more “family secrets” to uncover.

You mentioned in a previous interview that you allowed the cast to go off-script and incorporate dialogue in a way that felt natural to them. Is there a certain scene where the cast did some improv that really impressed you? 

Megan Park: We would always do scripted takes and always do fun runs. There’s a moment that really stands out to me in 108, which I directed, the breakup scene between Ramona and Oona. We shot that 360, so the actors could just move wherever they wanted. We had two cameras, which you can’t always do, and they were just flying. They were improv-ing a lot, and Bo’s reaction to the comment about the mommy issues and stuff — so much of that stuff was really real and happening in real time and felt crazy real. That was a really cool scene to watch because we talked a lot about what was happening, and there were the scripted beats, but I also encouraged them to find their own way to it and move in the spaces they felt were natural and reactions that felt the most organic. It was interesting because we probably only did four takes of it, and each take was really different because they were just really going with it and going with what felt right. Each take was genius, so we had a lot to work with. But that was really what sticks out to me as a really cool moment.

Why did you think it was the right move for Ramona and Oona to break up at the end of Season 1?

Park: I think they had to break up because they’re such the couple that it was such a big leap for them to go there, and then it also felt so realistic for it to be really hard to continue given everything that Ramona has gone through that summer and how much she’s changed and the abandonment issues of Oona, and how that would just flare up in light of that. That scene felt like one of the most organic scenes to write. It just felt like the right move at the right time, and then also for Season 2, really leaves you with a lot to explore between them.

Oona could have an interesting ex, too, because we still don’t know really what happened with Oona during the time when Ramona comes back to the show. She’s obviously been gone dealing with her grandfather, but there was a whole chunk of time we didn’t get to explore where maybe Ramona finds out some things about a past relationship that Oona had.

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Ramona and Oona have already had many highs and lows, whereas with Ellis and Annie, they feel very calm and settled for now.

Park: Ellis calms Annie down, like quiets her mind, quiets her spirit, which is what she didn’t realize she needed. We actually made a point with their romantic scenes. It was always either no music or very minimal music. And then with Rory, it was the total opposite feel. Like in Episode 105, everything’s very vibrant and the colors, and everything with them is very still. And I think with Oona and Ramona, it’s very turbulent and difficult to navigate from the get-go, and it also felt actually really realistic to us that her breakup with Oona would be the thing that would make her be like, “F**k this place, I’m out. My grandpa’s not here, so why don’t I just take the money and run?” This was kind of, in her mind, the last straw that was keeping her there after Annie has this weird reaction to the news about their genetic relationship, and so it did feel realistic to me that a 16-year-old after a breakup like that with their best friend would be like, “I’m out.”

With the Annie, Ellie, and Rory love triangle, there’s no bad guy here. Annie and Ellis have an undeniable connection, but Annie and Rory also have these great moments of vulnerability with each other. Do you see the love triangle as being over? 

Park: That’s a good question. That’s one of those things where I truly don’t know. If Annie had never come to Muskoka, Rory would have been an incredible choice for her if she stayed in the city. I think they actually deeply relate, especially in 105 when they’re talking about their anxiety and how he broke his own hand and the vulnerability there. They’ve experienced a lot of the same trauma, but in different ways, and have really high expectations for themselves and do understand each other on a level, and they’re able to communicate about it in a way that Ellis isn’t able to communicate about it, which is so Annie’s vibe. But with Ellis, is she making the choice that she thinks her mother would have made subconsciously? But there is just an unspoken attraction that’s kind of undeniable between them, and Annie is really getting to try on a different side of herself, which is really exciting to her. But is it over? I don’t know. Time will tell.

Daniel seems to think the love triangle is over, but I think he’s still got some skin in the game.

Park: He’s got skin in the game. There’s always going to be a chance for a Rory pop-up, and we always joked Denise probably had like 17 kids with all of her different husbands. So maybe there’s another Denise kid out there, another hot brother.

Oona’s mother is obviously a really touchy subject for her. Were there discussions about bringing in Oona and Maple’s mother into the fold? 

Park: Not Season 1, but if there’s a Season 2, absolutely. That was one of the main things we talked about for Season 2 because Bo is incredible, Mabel’s incredible, and I wish we’d had more time to dig into that. We also actually did have a whole other subplot line, which I won’t reveal because we’re gonna do in Season 2 with Oona, that we simply just didn’t have script time for because of what we’d already had to do, so there’s a lot more to her backstory and her mom’s backstory that’d be really fun to dig into.

Going into the first season, did you have a multiple-season plan for Sterling Point? What was your vision? 

Park: I wrote the pilot. I think I wrote one and two, maybe, or maybe just one, on my own, and then we took it out. Amazon ended up buying it, and then we partnered with Josh [Schwartz] and Steph [Savage] and then built the room and figured it out. I had an idea of where I wanted to go, but also, thank God for Josh and Steph because they know how to structure TV. Eight hours of something is very different than making a movie, so they taught me everything about how to structure a show and what you need to keep the momentum going, and also keep true to the tone that I wanted to stick to, which was really important to me. But no, we didn’t have a multiple-season plan. You kind of can’t. You have to think about a Season 2 because you want to plant the seeds to get there, but you also can’t be too worried about that. And I was mostly just like, okay, how do we make eight incredible episodes? And then if it happens, it happens. But if it just becomes a cult show like Freaks and Geeks and never goes on, will we still be happy with it? Which is probably not the right answer. They probably say, yes, I have seven seasons planned, but I don’t.

If there is a Season 2, would you want to do a time jump to the next summer? Would you ever want to spend time with Connor and Ramona in New York?

Park: I think you’d want to see Ramona in New York for a second. I think you’d want to see how that fits on her. I don’t know. That’s a question that’s a little bit based on when we would shoot the show and timing. I think you’d want to get a taste of what life has been like for Ramona and Connor in New York, and same with Annie.

The first season revolved around Ramona’s parentage, but Annie and Connor’s birth parents (at least birth mother) are still a mystery. Are there any more family secrets to uncover?

Park: There actually are. There are things that we talked about in the room that we would save for a Season 2. So surprisingly, there are. It’s not all genetic and biological necessarily. It’s different, but there definitely are still secrets and mysteries.

There’s definitely something between Steven and Denise. 

Park: Yeah, definitely. There’s a history.

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There’s also so much to explore with Joe and Kate given the Goldie of it all.

Park: I want Kate to have her redemption story. They’re both such amazing actors, and to have more between them again…. You think eight hours is so much time to dig into all these actors, but we actually had to cut a lot of stuff, even from certain storylines. There’s a lot with them, too, and Kate because really the backstory of her being away taking care of her sick family with Ellis when he was a toddler when all this went down, oof, we’ve got to unpack that. Joe has some explaining to do,

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Did you ever think about doing flashback scenes with Joe, Goldie, Steven?

Park: We thought about it very early on but decided that what we were going to challenge ourselves to not rely on that and try to really think of interesting ways to bring so much of what was a past storyline into the present, which was actually really hard because you don’t just want to always hear people talking about stuff; you want to see it. But we really tried hard not to go to flashbacks, but I think that there’s an opportunity for a bottle episode or something like that.

That last shot of Ramona, which mirrors the very opening shot with Annie, is that right away or has time passed?

Park: That’s right away.

Sterling Point, Season 1, Streaming Now, Prime Video