Prime Video’s new romantic drama Every Year After joins the platform’s journey deeper into the realm of page-to-screen adaptations following the hype of Off Campus and branching off of the success of The Summer I Turned Pretty. While the central trio of the cast may look familiar from credits through the 2020s, you may have recognized established Canadian actress Elisha Cuthbert (The Ranch, Jann), who Deadline reports had made her return to the screen after a four-year hiatus from acting.
Cuthbert has been acting since the age of 13, during which she gained attention from Hilary Clinton for co-hosting Popular Mechanics for Kids with Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice). She held the role of Kim Bauer in the series 24, and also netted parts in Love, Actually and Old School – all of which occurred within the first two years of her Hollywood film career. Cuthbert gained widespread notoriety for her performance as Danielle in the 2004 film The Girl Next Door, and furthered her credits with the role of Carly Jones in House of Wax in 2005. With 24, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, House of Wax, The Quiet, and Captivity, Cuthbert is considered a qualified “scream queen.”
Every Year After marks Cuthbert’s first major project post-hiatus. After 2021, she elected to step back from acting to focus on raising her children, in particular her (at the time) newborn second child. From Deadline and The Today Show, Cuthbert spoke on the reasoning behind her not wanting to be on set in recent years:
“I think after we had our second, I realized–because I had worked all through the first four years of our first child–and it was really hard to separate that mom from the working person I was. […] So, when we had our second, I just felt like I didn’t want to waste any second of it and I didn’t want to be on set.”
Additionally, she noted:
“I just felt like I needed to be at home with the kids and I enjoyed every minute. And now that they’re in school now full time, I feel like I have the space and the energy and the heart to kind of leave them and do it.”
View the full segment below, from Today on YouTube.
Cuthbert plays the role of Sue Florek, the mother of brothers and series’ main males Sam (Matt Cornett; High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, Zombies 3) and Charlie (Michael Bradway; Chicago Fire, Marked Men).
Every Year After, per Deadline, follows Percy Fraser (Sadie Soverall; Saltburn, Arcadian) and Sam Florek (Cornett), two estranged lifelong friends who come back together for a brief time as they explore whether their first love was meant to be their soulmate. All eight episodes of the series, based on author Carley Fortune’s novel Every Summer After and the “Barry’s Bay” duology, are now available to stream on Prime Video.