KaDee Strickland 'Screamed' When She Realized 'Cruel Summer' Would Be a 'Private Practice' Reunion (Exclusive) (2024)

When KaDee Strickland got the call about her role on Cruel Summer season 2, nostalgia kicked in when she realized it would also be a Private Practice reunion!

Speaking to PEOPLE about the second installment of the Freeform series, which premieres Monday, the actress opened up about her excitement to reunite with Paul Adelstein and Griffin Gluck on the show, 10 years after the final episode of Private Practice aired.

"The day that I got the call offering [me] this job, [they said] 'Guess who else is getting an offer?'" Strickland, 47, tells PEOPLE exclusively of the moment she learned she landed the role of Debbie Landry, alongside Adelstein, 54, as Steve Chambers.

"I remember I was sitting in a parked car and I was screaming, 'You've got to be kidding me.' Because Paul and I had just seen each other and talked about, 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if...' Because we really have a really great ease with one another on set," she continues. "We have similar processes. And that trust comes into play when you're doing relationships as complicated as we have to portray in this show."

Working with Adelstein is "spontaneous" and like "second nature," she adds.

"Because of our history, we can get so nasty with each other and have so much fun with each other. And it's always safe. I'm very safe with him. I can do or say anything, and it's totally okay," the actress says.

Strickland also opened up about working with Gluck, 22, who played her onscreen stepson in Private Practice, once again.

"I've seen Griffin become a man. And that's a very bizarre thing, but it definitely leads to the history amongst the characters," she says.

In Cruel Summer season 2, Strickland plays Debbie Landry, the mom of Sadie Stanley's Megan. It's a character Strickland says she can relate to in many ways as a mom herself.

"I love Debbie Landry's fierce desire to have her children be happy and have better lives than [the one] she had. I do relate to that. Now that I'm a parent, I fully understand it. I understand why my parents wanted it for me," she explains.

"Debbie's got some growing pains though, because she's cared for equally by her own child. It's that old dynamic that I think is pretty human. Where sometimes the parents need to be parented, when they should be parenting the kids," she continues. "I love the idea that you're looking at what it was like to raise a child as a single mother. Trying to do your best to raise two children — and both female. And really trying to model for them, 'Don't be like me, but have a better life than me.'"

She adds, "That's something I understand. I don't want my son to be a replica of me. I want to see the person emerge. And I felt like that was something that was very much part of Debbie's story with Megan."

Set in three different timelines surrounding Y2K, Cruel Summer season 2 is the second iteration in the hit anthology series.

Per an official synopsis from Freefrom, the new season "tracks the early friendship between Megan (Stanley), Isabella (Lexi Underwood) and Megan's best friend Luke (Gluck), the love triangle that blossomed, and the mystery that would impact all of their lives going forward."

Speaking with PEOPLE at the show's premiere in May, executive producer Jessica Biel teased that the central part of the story is the friendship between Megan and Isabella.

"We are leaning into the female friendship in a very, very big, deep, profound way," she teased. "We're gonna watch these two young women become best friends and then get torn apart and maybe come back together again. That's the foundation of the show."

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Season 2 ofCruel Summerwill kick off with a special two-hour premiere Monday at 9 p.m. ET on Freeform before moving to its regular 10 p.m. ET timeslot. New episodes will also be available to stream on Hulu the next day.