While External banks stars Chase Stokes, Jonathan Daviss (JD), Rudy Pankow and Drew Starkey are enjoying all the success they've seen from the show, which is still not without its challenges.
Ahead of the season four premiere of the Netflix show, the actors recently opened up in a joint interview for the cover of Cosmopolitan about navigating their public and personal lives online and the downsides of social media.
“Every generation experiences an invasion of privacy when you become a public figure,” Daviss said. “You want, as an artist, for people to engage in art and for you to have who you are for yourself. But now it's about trying to figure out who you are and what things you need to keep personal versus what things you can post on social media.
It's a balance that can sometimes be difficult to find, especially when online trolls start targeting friends and loved ones. Pankow previously had to publicly defend his girlfriend, Elaine Siemek, in 2021 due to the harassment she received online.
“I think a lot of people can weave together a narrative and what they want to believe. And they take it out on someone who doesn't deserve it. It's a shame and it's difficult. And what's even more unfortunate is that it's not in my control,” Pankow said of why he spoke out. “No one should have to go through something like this. And that's why social media is so complicated, because sometimes it can dictate the narrative of a show as an actual narrative. For example, what we are recording is meant to be consumed in the show. But some people might take that literally.”
Stokes stressed that people need to understand and recognize the difference between “fictional characters” and the “humans who created them.” He added: “We're in an age where you see a TikTok featuring the fictional character and then you see a version of the non-fictional character. So the lines are really distorted.
It's also one of the reasons Starkey limits his social media presence. “It can be really cruel,” he noted. “I'm an incredibly sensitive person.”
Despite the negatives, there are still many positives to the communities they have built with their fans online. Pankow said it's great to see that “so many people appreciated what you accomplished.”
But it can also be difficult for an actor when most of his fans come from a specific project. “Your relationship with the audience is intertwined with these characters that we played,” Starkey explained, which “can make it scarier to jump out of this world.”
External banks the first part of the fourth season, also starring Madelyn Cline, Madison Bailey and Carlacia Grant, will be released on Netflix on October 10. The second part will premiere on November 7.