Chase Stokes may play a fearless adventurer on Outer Banks, but one of his most intense real-life moments happened when the cameras were rolling.
During an Entertainment Weeklygame of Lie v. Lie, Stokes, 33, revealed that he once had to jump into action after co-star Madison Bailey, 27, struggled to stay above water while filming a scene in Barbados.
The cast was shooting a sequence where Bailey’s character, Kiara, holds an unconscious JJ after he falls from a boat.
Stokes said he noticed something was wrong when he could no longer see Bailey’s face.
“We were in Barbados and there’s a scene when JJ [Rudy Pankow] gets knocked off of a boat, and he’s unconscious in the water and Kiara’s holding him up,” Stokes recalled.
After Bailey admitted they had already been treading water “for like a minute,” Stokes realised the situation was becoming dangerous.
“It was really hard to communicate,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh no, Bails has been under there for a while.’ So I jumped off the boat and I realized that she was not able to breathe underwater.”
Bailey admitted she couldn’t “swim closer to the boat,” while Stokes discovered everyone on set thought she was simply giving an Oscar-worthy performance.
“I was like, ‘No, she’s drowning.’ I was like, ‘Hey, that’s not acting!’ ” Stokes joked.
Bailey had her own take on Stokes’ underwater skills, teasing, “You actually make a bad day worse … When I’m struggling to barely swim, Chase is like [swimming easily]. I swear he’s breathing under there just to make me look bad.”
Now, after seven years, Outer Banksis coming to an end.
Stokes previously said the cast wanted to finish strong rather than drag the story out.
“We want the story to end on the right note versus [turning] four seasons into season nine and we’re going after aliens or something,” he said.
Season 5 is streaming on Netflix.
2026-08-21 16:31:00
