Madelyn Cline Opens up About the “Difficult” Reality of Filming ‘Outer Banks’ With Ex Chase Stokes

Playing an on-screen couple is one thing, but doing it for years after a real-life breakup is an entirely different challenge, and few actors have navigated that quite as publicly as the stars of ‘Outer Banks.’ Madelyn Cline and Chase Stokes brought Sarah Cameron and John B. Routledge’s central romance to life across all five seasons of the Netflix hit, a relationship that famously mirrored their own real-world dynamic in the show’s earliest days.

That parallel began back in 2019, when Cline and Stokes met just weeks before filming began on the series. By the time ‘Outer Banks‘ premiered on Netflix in April 2020, dating rumors were already swirling, and the couple eventually confirmed their real-life romance that June, giving fans the rare thrill of watching an on-screen love story unfold alongside an off-screen one.

That storybook overlap didn’t last, though. Cline and Stokes broke up during Season 2, but were still required to continue playing devoted on-screen lovers across Seasons 3 through 5, a situation Cline has now openly acknowledged came with real emotional weight. “There were moments when it was difficult, absolutely,” she told The Hollywood Reporter, before adding, “but once the dust kind of settled, we were able to just revert to the friendship that we always had. At some point, you look at each other and you’re like, ‘Are you ready to stop being miserable? Because I’m ready.'”

That honesty adds new context to years of fan speculation about how the two managed to maintain such convincing on-screen chemistry despite their split. Cline has previously spoken about how disorienting the public nature of their relationship felt at the time, telling Jake Shane’s “Therapuss” podcast that she “didn’t realize what the repercussions [were] of inviting so many people into something… that’s intimate,” describing the breakup as something that left her not knowing “which way was up, which way was down” given how tied her identity had become to both the relationship and the show itself.

Stokes has echoed a similar sense of professional commitment in past interviews, telling Entertainment Weekly back in 2023 that the two had made a pact before they even started dating to always prioritize the work. “Mads and I have been working together now for 30 episodes, and we made a promise to each other before we even started dating that the work was always going to come first,” he said, adding that the promise “stayed 100 percent truthful” even through the personal fallout of their split.

Both actors have moved on in the years since their 2021 breakup. Stokes went on to date singer Kelsea Ballerini, a relationship that cycled through multiple splits and reconciliations before ultimately ending, while Cline has been linked to musician Jackson Guthy, comedian Pete Davidson, and influencer Henry Smith.

Despite that separate personal history, the professional partnership at the center of ‘Outer Banks’ clearly endured. Cline’s comments to THR arrive as the show wraps its fifth and final season, closing out a run that saw her and Stokes anchor one of Netflix’s most enduring young-adult romances even while navigating an increasingly complicated offscreen relationship in the background.

Beyond addressing the Stokes dynamic, Cline also opened up in the same interview about the disorienting experience of sudden fame following the show’s breakout success. She described the adjustment using a comparison to code-switching, explaining, “It’s more like adapting. You’re a chameleon. I didn’t understand that when I first got there. But someone told me once, every time you step outside your apartment in LA, it’s the biggest audition of your life.”

With ‘Outer Banks’ now concluded, Cline’s candid reflection on the show’s most complicated offscreen dynamic offers a fitting final word on a relationship that played out in real time alongside one of Netflix’s most beloved fictional romances.

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