🚨Warning: Huge spoilers ahead for Season 1!🚨
1. Chase Stokes actually passed on the show at first because it was being pitched as a Goonies reboot. But then, when he got the script, he realized it was completely different.
2. In fact, Chase ended up reading for the role of Topper months after passing on the project — eventually, the casting director talked to creator Jonas Pate about Chase playing John B.
3. Chase and Madelyn Cline's first interaction was when Chase randomly asked her to "walk on his back" in the production office and he had no idea who she was.
4. Rudy Pankow wanted to play JJ from the beginning, but the producers wanted him for John B. originally — he thought he was going to play John B. until he flew to Charleston after his last audition.
5. In fact, Jonathan "J.D." Daviss, who plays Pope, helped Rudy come up with the version of JJ you see onscreen in Season 1 — they worked through Rudy's JJ scenes that he later performed opposite Chase for their chemistry read.
6. While the Outer Banks is actually in North Carolina, the show filmed in South Carolina due to North Carolina's anti-LGBTQ laws that were in effect when production began — North Carolina has since repealed the "bathroom bill."
7. When John B. used the scuba gear to investigate Scooter's boat, it was actually the first time Chase had gone scuba diving in his life — he went through a quick training course right before filming began.
8. And, while John B. had to swim pretty deep underwater during this moment, Chase was actually only a foot below the surface — he was floating in the water next to the boat during the entire scene.
9. Also, all of the underwater shots were filmed at a cop training facility for scuba divers — no green screen was used and it took them 16 hours to sink the boat.
10. Most of the stunts were done by the cast, and they had to go through a few weeks of boating, diving, swimming, surfing, and some boxing training before filming began.
11. In order to film the boat scenes, a camera crew was stationed on an exact replica of the Pogue — they would start pretty far out to get a wide shot and then slowly push in to close-ups of each character.
12. A lot of the crew — including the showrunners, directors, and camera operators — were friends growing up.
13. The cast had "a lot of freedom" while filming scenes and there's actually a ton of improv featured on Outer Banks.
14. In fact, Rudy improvised some of JJ's speech when he talked about his dad to Pope and Kie while he was in the hot tub.
15. Originally, John B. and Sarah's kiss wasn't meant to be filmed in the rain. However, it started raining IRL and the cast and crew decided to go for it "full Notebook" style.
16. The first scene Chase filmed on Outer Banks was when Sheriff Peterkin came to talk to John B. after the beach incident.
17. Madison Bailey and J.D. filmed several different versions of the scene when Pope tells Kie he has feelings for her — some versions were light and funny, while others were more serious.
18. Director Valerie Weiss, Madelyn, and Chase were the ones who came to the decision to cut John B. and Sarah's sex scene short — they wanted there to be a clear distinction between this moment and the one with Sarah and Topper.
19. J.D. got all of the Pogues a wrap gift, which was a bracelet that said "Pogues for Life" on it, but he accidentally spelled "Pogues" wrong.
20. Rudy and Chase lived together while filming because they wanted JJ and John B.'s friendship to be as authentic as possible onscreen — living together helped them bond.
21. Recently, Madelyn, Chase, Rudy, and Drew Starkey were actually quarantining together for about a month and a half — they even built a giant fort in their living room and cooked meals together.
22. They actually filmed a couple of different versions of the Season 1 ending before settling on the one that made the final cut.
23. And finally, the creators and writers have already begun working on scripts for a potential Season 2.
