Chase Stokes is saying goodbye to his breakthrough roles in Netflix’s ‘Outer Banks.’ Maggie Nutley Logo text “I’ve always gone with the mentality, it’s not how the plane takes off, it’s how you land it,” says Outer Banks star Chase Stokes.
As the 33-year-old actor closes out his time on the hit Netflix young adult action-adventure series, which returned for its fifth and final season Thursday, he’s been reflecting on the life-changing experience.
Unlike the stars of today’s hit YA shows, Stokes and the rest of the Outer Banks cast spent much of their meteoric ascent isolated on set. When the show premiered and hit with the masses, it was peak pandemic — they were one of the first Netflix productions to return to set. Stokes jokes that they were the “test dummy” for returning to set.
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“All of these shows, [when they] pop off, it’s like they’re going to Paris Fashion Week and they’re doing all this stuff,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We were just taking three COVID tests a day, wearing masks and doing scenes in freezing temperatures, pretending it’s summer.”
For Stokes, it felt like a saving grace to be able to lock into the show and focus on the work. “The restrictions and the guidelines [meant] we couldn’t go out, so we would just drive [around] on a Friday night in our cars and look at everybody out and about,” he says.
Outer Banks gaining popularity during the pandemic meant that the actors didn’t see just how successful the show had become until the world opened up more. Stokes recalls shooting in downtown Charleston during season two and having 3,000 fans show up to watch the cast film. That was the moment that clicked that the show was working and it was more than just numbers on social media.
“It’s not like you have one or two paparazzi who are just there; you have hundreds of people across the way that are screaming while you’re in the middle of a take,” Stokes says. “You have the Charleston Police Department that has to come out and do crowd control to make sure that we’re able to actually shoot in the locations that we’re paying for.”
Stokes, by his own admission, had a “really hard time” adjusting to the fame given the show was shot in their little bubble. Once the pandemic lifted, it felt like a madhouse. “I’m taking my dog for a walk back in L.A., and he’s taking a shit on the side of the street and a TMZ tour bus is stopped next to me and is just taking photos of me,” he recalls. The cast all clung to each other in the beginning.
Stokes on filming during the early days of Outer Banks: “We were just taking three COVID tests a day, wearing masks and doing scenes in freezing temperatures, pretending it’s summer.” Tia Page In recent years, other actors on young adult shows have reached out to Stokes for advice on how to handle the rapid change. He’s felt unable to help them because he isn’t quite sure he and the Outer Banks cast really handled it. “There isn’t really an idiot’s guide of how to navigate success in this space,” he says.
The actor notes that television’s in “sort of the renaissance period of young adult,” and it’s only further proved true that Outer Banks had a trajectory all of its own. But there’s a universal element that all young adult actors must contend with — breaking out of the space. “I still to this day feel very pigeonholed,” Stokes says when asked if he finds it hard to break out of his YA start.
The tides are turning a bit on the perception of starting out on coming-of-age or romance series. Stokes both feels it happening and doesn’t. “There’s no ego attached to this; it’s just personal experience,” he says.
“You watch the Heated Rivalry guys go out and do more projects, and immediately go on to do other things. You’ve watched the Euphoria kids do it. Even Off Campus, I’m hearing rumors about what they’re all doing next,” Stokes says.
In the wake of breakout success, timelines and shooting schedules can change an experience. Outer Banks, given its ambitious scale and at times global backdrop, made it take longer than most shows would to make.
“You have to find new ways to appreciate it and really respect it versus going at it from a really frustrated point of being limited,” the actor says. “This is really a cool opportunity to change the perception of who I am as an artist. I’m not just the YA guy with the floppy beach hair and the stoner boat show. I’m capable of going and playing a character that’s troubled.”
In figuring out how to move past his breakout role, Stokes sought the advice of an expert on the matter — Dawson’s Creek alum Joshua Jackson. “It was a really, really calming and peaceful conversation to know that it is a blessing to be known as this character,” he says.
Before Stokes could fully tackle his first post-Outer Banks, he needed time for himself. Instead of leaving the show and jumping into the many opportunities that were coming his way towards the end of filming, he had what he calls a late quarter-life crisis. He started to wonder who he was outside of Outer Banks and worked to get to know himself more.
Stokes as John B in Outer Banks season five. Jackson Lee Davis / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection “I’ve been John B more than I’ve been Chase,” he says. “At 33, playing a 19-, 20-year-old kid who’s been who he is, I needed to go find myself.”
Stokes went off the grid and dove into “deep, intensive therapy work.” He started seeing an internal medicine doctor because he’d been working to keep his body the same as it was when he started the show at 27. “I had so much shit wrong,” he says.
“I left that show… My liver was failing, my kidney was failing. I had so many health issues that I had to figure out, and my brain was all out of whack,” he says. “It was a really important time for me to get my bearings right versus just go back into work and mask it.”
He didn’t push himself to work. Stokes describes undergoing blood tests every other week and TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, therapy. His testosterone was “alarmingly low” for a man his age. “It’s been a lot of work to get back to baseline, and it was definitely scary for a little bit,” he says.
For the last month, he’s been able to feel more like himself again. Stokes is religious about therapy and staying on top of it because he knew something was wrong but simply hadn’t had the time to dig into what it could be. On one side of things, he knew that everyone was thinking he should capitalize on the momentum but he couldn’t keep going as he was.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen great people leave this earth too soon for just continuing to go [on], and I have a lot to live for. I have a lot that I want to do, and a lot I want to accomplish,” the actor says.
Stokes didn’t want to enter the next chapter of his career until he sorted things out. “Hindsight is 2020, but I probably, unfortunately, wouldn’t have been around much longer if I didn’t take care of my body, which is a really jarring thought,” he admits. He’s found beauty in that knowledge, however, as he now feels like he knows his limits.
Stokes on questioning who he was outside of Outer Banks: “I’ve been John B more than I’ve been Chase.” Ava Ghasiri Having found solid ground, Stokes is pushing forward with new projects including his upcoming directorial debut I Told the Sunset About You and a leading spot in AMC’s upcoming NASCAR series Thunder Road. When he’d first read the script for the series, they hadn’t even begun casting. But he instantly knew something special was there, equating the feelings he had reading it to those that he had when he first read Outer Banks. “I forced myself down the throats of the showrunners, Cliff [Roberts] and Taylor [Elmore], and made them have lunch with me,” he jokes.
Stokes is excited about the show for more than just the driving — he’s also excited about that part, though. He proudly shows off a video on his phone over Zoom of him driving 150 miles per hour on a track. The creative process itself is quite different from what he’s used to. Unlike on Outer Banks, where the actors didn’t receive all the scripts upfront, he’s been able to see things from a more zoomed-out perspective.
“I had a three-hour conversation with our showrunner yesterday about character. Our writers are just phenomenal,” he says. “I’m terrified. I’m truly terrified because I’ve had this safe space of Outer Banks, and now I’m going into an entirely different world.”
Naturally, Stokes has some bittersweet feelings about officially closing the Outer Banks chapter in his life. “The show has consistently done billions and billions of views. It’s not like I did a network show that was OK. This show was a monster — it’s silently been one of Netflix’s biggest shows globally for five years,” he says.
“I truly never in a million years thought that I would ever be a part of something that had the impact that this character, and this universe, has created. I’m so grateful that I was a part of something that gave people hope in a very confusing time in human history,” Stokes continues. “I’m really proud of the messaging, and the storytelling, and being a part of something that didn’t round the edges, that really hit it head on, because I think that’s how I tackle life.”
As the actor heads into the final stretch of press and fan events for the show, he’s taking it all in and is filled with gratitude. He’s hit a place where he’s emotionally and physically ready to move forward. Stokes adds, “I feel great for the first time in a long time.”
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