It is seemingly true that when one becomes famous, they do not have their entire life to themselves, and it appears that the Outer Banks cast is experiencing the same. The cast members, including Johnathan Daviss, Chase Stokes, Rudy Pankow, and Drew Starkey, opened up about the bittersweet taste of the stardom that comes with its own set of difficulties.
The actors sat down with Cosmopolitan for their cover story and talked about dealing with public and personal lives online and how it negatively affects them. Daviss shared that each generation experiences privacy invasion when one becomes a public personality.
As an artist, one wishes that the audience would be engaged in their art and they could have who they are to themselves, but now it’s about attempting to figure out who one is, what one needs to keep private, and what needs to be on social media, said the actor
Pankow added to the conversation, saying, “I think a lot of people can intertwine a narrative and what they want to believe. And they take it out on someone that doesn’t deserve it. That’s unfortunate and it’s hard. And what’s even more unfortunate is that it’s not in my control.”
For the unversed, back in 2021, he had to defend his girlfriend, Elaine Siemek, in public because of the harassment she endured on social media.
The performer shared that no individual should experience something like that and that is why online platforms are very “tricky” because at times the narrative of the show is enforced as an actual narrative. He continued, “For example, what we’re recording is meant to be consumed in the show. But some people might take it as literal.”
Stokes shared that individuals need to fathom and see the difference between the characters that are fictional and the real-life people who made them. He added that we are in the era where one sees a TikTok that has characters that are fictional, and then they see a version of those characters that is non-fictional. He continued, “So the lines are really skewed.”
This is seemingly one of the reasons behind Starkey’s limited presence on social media. He said that that can be “really cruel“ and also said that he is a “sensitive” individual.
However, the cast also looked at the opposite side, with Pankow saying that it was good to witness people praising what they made. At times it can be difficult for a performer when the majority of their fanbase is from one particular project.
Starkey said that one’s relationship with the audience is interconnected with those characters that they have been portraying, which can make “jumping out of this world scarier.”
The highly anticipated season 4 of Outer Banks part one can be caught on Netflix on October 10. Its second part will be released on November 7, 2024.