Chase Stokes Asked Madelyn Cline To Walk On His Back Before Their First Chemistry Read

Chase Stokes describes the whirlwind experience of auditioning for the role of John B in Netflix’s “Outer Banks." It resulted in asking a girl he didn’t know yet— Madelyn Cline, who would later play his love interest—to crack his back.

Video transcript

- Did that take time? Did you-- did you know any of the guys, the guys you were working with? Or was it all new people, new faces?

CHASE STOKES: No, it was-- it was all new. I mean, I think the funniest story of the bunch would be-- I got off the plane, took the red eye, and I got in. I didn't even go to the actual hotel to drop my stuff off. I went straight to the production office for my read. And, you know, for lack of better terms, I was, like, on my last penny. I had to call my mom and ask for money because I had overdrafted my bank account. So I got an Uber from the airport to get to the production office. I walked in and, like, had my hooded sweatshirt on and I see this girl sitting in the lobby. And I'm like, hey, I know this is a really shitty question ask but, like, I just sat in the middle seat for a red eye and had 19 pages of dialogue and-- can you just-- can you walk on my back? She was like, what? And I was like, I know this is crazy but, like, I just-- I'm-- like, my back needs to be cracked.

And so this girl gets on my back and she's like, I probably should've told you this before, I'm Madeline Cline I'm playing Sarah Cameron. I'm like, right. OK.

- [LAUGHS] No way?

CHASE STOKES: Yeah, and the next thing you know, Josh Shannon and Jonas opened the door to the conference room where we're doing this chemistry read. And I had no idea at the time that I was like having a chemistry read with her right after this.

- Yeah.

CHASE STOKES: So at that point, we kind of had established this friendship that was really kind of, you know, immediately working. And they were kind of, like, hmm, OK. Well, this might work. And then when it came with the rest of us, we all moved into the same apartment complex. So we were all four doors down from each other. Rudy and I, like, really wanted to make sure that this friendship was incredibly authentic. So Rudy and I actually lived together the whole time, which was a riot in itself. It was the central hub of every weekend shenanigan. I mean, it almost came a little too easy for all of us to be friends. And we had so many different activities because, you know, all of the boating stuff, we didn't use stunt doubles.

- That's all you guys.

CHASE STOKES: Besides some of the scenes. Yeah. Except for the front flip. You know, that iconic front flip that-- Rudy didn't actually--

- Yeah. --toss himself over. But a lot of the things that you're seeing on the water, that's us. So we went through quite a bit of time of boating lessons with these insanely talented marine coordinators down in Charleston. Lance, our head coordinator, he did, like, "Titanic," he did the "Hangover II"-- that crazy scene where the boat lands in the wedding, like, that was him.

- That's all him. Wow.

CHASE STOKES: So yeah, we had all of these experiences where we were kind of forced into this crazy world to where we just were having so much fun. It was kind of like a YMCA summer camp where you're getting paid and Netflix is sponsoring it, I guess was the way that we looked at it.

- What a crazy ride, dude.

CHASE STOKES: Yeah, so, it was a lot of fun.

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