27 Mar 2023

Madelyn Cline Plays the Long Game

Written by Emily

Madelyn is featured on the cover of the March 27, 2023 issue of WWD! Check out the photos in the gallery and her interview below!

Magazine Scans > 2023 > WWD (March 27)
Photoshoots > 2023 > Session 11 | WWD

Madelyn Cline is one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising stars, with a schedule that has recently included a trip to Paris Fashion Week and the Oscars party circuit in between two major press runs — yet these days, all she really dreams of is some rest and relaxation.

“Doing nothing, staring at the ceiling and laying on the floor” is how she describes her fantasy that things have slowed down. It’s yet another rainy afternoon in Los Angeles and Cline is dressed in her usual uniform of comfy cozy (“at this point I have more sweats than I do actual pants”), playing with the hoodie strings of her Off-White fleece as she talks. Her immediate plans are to head back home to Malibu, California, and meet her boyfriend, Jackson Guthy, for some oysters and beyond that she’s enjoying the luxury of playing things by ear.

“One step at a time. Seeing what’s next,” she says.

Cline, 25, is in an unusual position of doing her first proper press tour, despite being three seasons into one of the most popular TV series to have debuted in recent years. “Outer Banks,” in which she stars as Sarah Cameron, premiered in April 2020 and immediately spent weeks in the number-one most viewed spot on Netflix. The third and most recent season, which premiered last month, was viewed more than 154 million hours within the first four days (yes, that’s the number-one spot again). In the nearly three years since “Outer Banks” became a thing, Cline has been followed by 16 million people on Instagram and was tapped to join the “Knives Out” universe for the sequel, “Glass Onion,” which premiered last fall.

But her fame blew up virtually while she was at home in lockdown during the pandemic — and so much of the IRL publicity for her projects is still new to her.

“This past year has been different just because we’re properly doing everything, and it’s not just over Zoom,” Cline says. “So in a way it still feels very new and it feels like I’ve experienced two different things. You know what I mean? The pandemic and shooting during the pandemic, and also our show premiering during the pandemic. It just existed on your phone, but that only feels as real as this screen,” she adds, holding up her phone. “And so being able to properly go and do everything that accompanies the show being successful and ‘Glass Onion,’ that’s what feels like a ‘pinch me’ because I’m like, ‘What am I doing here?’”

The third season of “Outer Banks” was celebrated not only with a traditional premiere but with its own daylong festival called “Poguelandia,” (a reference to the friend group on the show, called Pogues), drawing legions of fans who turned up to nerd out on a day of their favorite show.

Cline guesses that early on people were drawn to the show, which follows a group of teenagers on a treasure hunt for gold, because of the element of escapism. It’s also a show about the friendship between the Pogues, something Cline thinks a lot of young people yearn for.

“I think people were craving connection and were missing their friends,” she says of the show’s initial success. “And the friendships on the show I think are one of the strongest things we have, the characters’ friendships with each other.”
Continue reading…

27 Mar 2023

27 Feb 2023

Madelyn Cline Can Finally Talk About That Outer Banks Finale

Written by Emily

Madelyn has a new interview with W Magazine! You can read her interview below and check out 2 photos from her photoshoot in the gallery! Hopefully we will get some more!

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Outer Banks season 3.

Madelyn Cline has been waiting since the end of last summer to publicly discuss all of the spoilers from the third season of Netflix’s Outer Banks, dodging questions from fans, friends, and journalists alike for months. So, when she logs onto a Zoom call on the morning of the latest 10-episode drop of the soapy teen drama, the actress can finally breathe a sigh of relief. “It’s always so funny dancing around plotlines that you don’t want to give away, so I feel like there’s a weight that’s been lifted off my chest,” Cline tells W.

For three seasons, Cline has played Sarah Cameron, the queen bee from a wealthy family of Kooks who has switched allegiances to a friend group of working-class Pogues. It’s a role that has put Cline both on the map and through her paces. In the international search for an ancient treasure, Sarah has survived being shot, drowned, and strangled—and that’s just at the hands of her own family. But the third season brings a new kind of heartache for Sarah, whose loyalty is tested when she is faced, once more, with the life she left behind.

Below, Cline unpacks the latest chapter of Sarah’s journey, (including the experience of shooting that finale), her character’s ill-fated hook-up and subsequent betrayal of John B. (Chase Stokes), and whether there is any hope for Sarah’s complicated relationship with her brother, Rafe (Drew Starkey).

The Outer Banks finale is easily the most ambitious episode of television that you have ever shot. How did you react when you discovered the scale of this episode would require you to film in a dark cavern hundreds of feet underground?

The last two episodes feel like a short film because of the expanse of what we were trying to achieve; it’s the accumulation of the last 30 episodes. I remember reading the last two episodes, and I was like, “How are we gonna figure this out? How are we gonna shoot this?” I remember walking into the production office [during] our last few weeks in Charleston, and I saw the drawings of what they were wanting El Dorado to look like, and I was like, “Where on earth [can we find that]? Are we building a stage?” We went back to Barbados, and we shot in an actual cave for three or four days.

I didn’t realize that I was claustrophobic until I was in that cave. There was no sunlight, and I had no concept of time. And of course, I have intrusive thoughts, so my mind was just racing, going through the worst case scenarios: “Oh my God, has no one seen that documentary [about the Thai boys’ soccer team who had to be rescued from a cave]?” I definitely had to talk myself down, but we pulled it off. We would not have been able to make any of that possible if it wasn’t for our crew. [But] I was glad when we wrapped the cave. [Laughs.]

How much of the finale required you and Chase to do your own stunts in that cave, and how much of it was achieved through visual or practical effects?

There were a lot of camera angles that were put in place to make it seem like we were jumping over this big crevice, when in reality it was just a little jump over a small stream. While we can cheat with cameras, there’s only so much you can do. We were in the water. We were trekking through the cave. We were in parts of the cave that people aren’t normally supposed to be in, which was such a privilege.
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27 Feb 2023

The ‘Outer Banks’ Cast Dives into the Chaotic Season 3 Finale

Written by Emily

The cast of Outer Banks has a new interview to discuss the Season 3 finale! You can read it below! You can also find some new photos added to our gallery. These are from the Netflix photoshoot that EW released earlier this month!

“Hot damn.”

Those two words, muttered by John B (Chase Stokes) in the final moment of Outer Banks Season 3, set up a whole new world of adventure for the show’s upcoming fourth season. But behind the scenes of the drama, the phrase has its own significance.

Before the cameras roll on every scene, the first assistant director (AD) kicks things off with a “hot damn!” It’s become so commonplace to the cast and crew that co-creator and executive producer Jonas Pate secretly instructed Stokes to deliver the quip in that final scene as an inside joke.

“We didn’t tell [AD Michael G. Jefferson] I was going to say it,” Stokes tells Tudum. So at the very end of filming the scene, “he had tears in his eyeballs,” says Rudy Pankow (who plays JJ), finishing his co-star and former roommate’s sentence. (Stokes crashed on Pankow’s floor in a sleeping bag when they were filming Season 1.)

The intimate dynamic among the cast and crew — whether they’re tossing the phrase “butterfly knife” into an interview or bringing up Ted Lasso repeatedly — mirrors the Pogues’ on-screen playfulness and closeness, albeit under less perilous conditions.

Although they all come from different circumstances, just like the Pogues, the cast feel like they’ve formed their own tribe since they’re all “in the exact same boat,” Jonathan Daviss (Pope) explains. “Full pun intended,” adds Stokes.

“We’ve all said the tagline for Season 3 is ‘Nothing to lose,’ and that’s how we started at the very beginning of the show,” continues Stokes. “Our motto was, ‘We’ve got nothing to lose here.’ Now our schedules are a lot different than what they once were, but we still find time to come back to each other and make sure that we’re all checking in and doing each other right.”
Continue reading…

27 Feb 2023

24 Feb 2023

Madelyn Cline for InStyle Australia

Written by Emily

Madelyn is featured on the digital cover of InStyle Australia with a brand new shoot! Check out the photos in the gallery and her interview below!

Magazine Scans > 2023 > InStyle Australia (February)
Photoshoots > 2023 > Session 06 | InStyle Australia

Sitting alone in her Los Angeles apartment one night, Madelyn Cline started to cry. It was 2020 (so, well, you know what that means) and her Netflix series, Outer Banks, was set to premiere the next day. It was Cline’s first lead role and she was “hoping for the best but expecting the worst”. Which naturally, meant crying at home by herself. “I was just thinking like, ‘dang, we just shot this thing and we had the best time doing it, and what if it comes out and nobody likes it and we never get to do it again?” the 25-year-old remembers. “So I kind of let myself feel all the sad emotions about it. And I just came to a place of acceptance where I was like, ‘You know what, I’ve had this wonderful experience, I’ve learned so much, I’ve met some great people, and if I never get to do it again, at least I have the memory of it.’”

As fate would have it, Cline’s worst case scenario remained a figment of her imagination. Outer Banks was one of Netflix’s biggest series in 2020 (saying something for a year where everyone treated watching television like a competitive sport), got picked up for a second season and when that dropped in 2021, it joined an elite club of series that hit over 2 billion minutes of viewing in a single week across its 20 episodes. The series follows a group of teens from a small South Carolina town where people are organised in a caste-like system which separates the upper class (“Kooks”) from the working-class (“Pogues”). Cline plays Sarah Cameron, who is a Kook with a rebellious streak who invariably gets caught up with the Pogues when they decide to hunt for lost treasure and falls in love with one, too. Almost overnight, it delivered Cline a sizable and very passionate young fanbase: to-date, she has over 20 million followers across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok who hang off her every word.

When we speak, Cline is Zooming me from inside her car, on the way to get ready for the Outer Banks season 3 premiere — their first for the show due to the pandemic circumstances in which it originally aired. “It’s funny because like, I don’t know, it felt a little like a pipe dream, you know?” she tells me, sounding a bit giddy about the prospect. “We were just like, ‘are we ever gonna have a chance to properly have a party to celebrate this show? We recently had a really nice dinner with [Netflix CEO] Ted Sarandos and he was explaining all the activations we’re doing for this season, which are just so fun and so cool and so engaging. You know, I’ve seen stuff for Stranger Things and other shows for Netflix, and I’ve always been like, that’s so cool. And now we get it for our show, I can’t shut up about it.”

At the premiere, she’ll walk the carpet in a shimmering baby blue Stella McCartney dress— a designer who Cline says is one of her favourites. “Stella is so cool and so rock ‘n’ roll,” she tells me, explaining that the glamour of the red carpet is still something she’s adjusting to. “Me, in my daily life, I walk into my closet and I get really overwhelmed, so I end up wearing the same five outfits,” — a uniform of black or neutrals that she describes self-deprecatingly as “couch potato chic, if you will.” Nonetheless, working with celebrity stylist Mimi Cuttrell is always going to put you in good stead. Also counting the Hadid sisters, Iris Law and Ariana Grande among her clientele, Cuttrell is something of a go-to for the fashion girls who get it. Cline says working with her has been formative for her sense of self in the spotlight. “She’s really good at reading situations and putting me in something that doesn’t wear me,” she explains. “And I really appreciate that.”
Continue reading…

24 Feb 2023

21 Feb 2023

Madelyn Cline for Netflix Tudum

Written by Emily

Madelyn has a brand new shoot and interview with Netflix Tudum. Check out the gorgeous photos in the gallery and her interview below!

Photoshoots > 2023 > Session 05 | Netflix Tudum

For Madelyn Cline, fame came with a White Claw.

The Outer Banks star was sitting in a Los Angeles park with a friend back in 2020, when she was recognized by a fan for the first time. “I saw this car drive by once, twice and then a third time,” Cline tells Tudum at the London Hotel in West Hollywood. Feeling creeped out, the actor asked her friend if they could leave. “We start grabbing our stuff and walking to our car and these boys come out of their car and walk towards us. They hand me a White Claw and they’re like, ‘Can we have a picture? You’re from that show!’ And then it hit me. That was the first time that had ever happened. I took the White Claw and I took the picture.”

Now, a little more than two years (and countless photos with fans) later, Cline is fast becoming one of the most in-demand young actors in Hollywood. The 25-year-old, who left her South Carolina home at 18 to pursue an acting career, has two seasons of Netflix’s teen adventure drama Outer Banks under her wing (with a third arriving Feb. 23) and is quickly racking up rising young star experiences — like employing her own glam team, traveling the world and booking fashion brand partnerships — much of which she shares with her 13.7 million enthusiastic Instagram followers.

Sitting across from her in full glam/working professional mode, Cline is every bit a Series Star, but also the epitome of chill vibes: Every now and then she’ll let a yawn slip out or make a casual quip about her shapewear being too tight. “I’m still learning how to live on my own and be an adult,” she admits. “But now it’s filled with things like [press days and photo shoots] that I had always dreamed about doing.”

The actor, known as Maddie to friends and loved ones, has a natural charm that effervesces on-screen and off, which is part of why fans are obsessed with her Kook-turned-Pogue character Sarah Cameron on Outer Banks. “These kids, they really go through it,” Cline says of the upcoming third season, which continues to follow the Pogues’ quest for gold and Sarah’s turbulent relationship with her family. “Sarah’s been through a lot.”

Cline’s own upbringing was definitely less perilous, though it certainly had its share of adventure. Born and raised just outside of Charleston in Goose Creek, South Carolina, her interest in pop culture and entertainment was piqued from an early age, and her mom, Pam, an estate agent and her father Mark, an engineer, encouraged their only child’s creative pursuits.

“It wasn’t an exact moment I can pinpoint, more a growing fascination and then kind of [an] obsession,” she says about her motivation to try her hand at acting. “I had little characters I would dress up and play, and I would put on little skits with friends.”

Cline’s first professional paychecks came from modeling gigs and TV commercials for brands including T-Mobile. She was six weeks into her freshman year at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, when she decided to move across the country to pursue acting full-time in Los Angeles.

“I definitely like to think that everything happens for a reason, but at the same time, I’m too self-doubtful to fully believe that,” she admits. Her first year in Los Angeles wasn’t without its challenges — sleeping in her car, living in crappy apartments and working minimum wage jobs — but unlike the majority of people who move to Hollywood with stars in their eyes and nothing to show for it, Cline soon became a fully fledged working actor with guest roles in Vice Principals, The Originals and, in 2017, a two-episode stint in Season 2 of Stranger Things.

“I was so excited to be on that show and really nervous to meet everyone,” says Cline. “It was the biggest set I’d ever been on, which was really intimidating. It was an overnight shoot and a costume party–type scene where Nancy [Natalia Dyer] and Steve [Joe Keery] break up. I had the greatest time.”

In 2018 Cline booked Outer Banks. The series, about treasure-hunting teens from opposite social sectors growing up in the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, became an instant hit and made its stars almost overnight celebrities when it premiered in April 2020. “Because we’ve come up together, we’ve all gone through the same things,” says Cline of the cast’s tight-knit bond. “That’s really helpful and lovely.” She adds that she’s so grateful for everything the show’s given her — the opportunity to embody a character she loves for 30 episodes, so far, and exposure that helped her land a role in last year’s starry ensemble whodunit Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Netflix

21 Feb 2023

14 Feb 2023

Madelyn for TODAY.com

Written by Emily

Madelyn has done a new photoshoot for TODAY.com! Check out the photos in our gallery!

Photoshoots > 2023 > Session 04 | TODAY.com

Madelyn Cline feels like a friend — my friend, your friend, the internet’s friend. A really, really cool friend.

It’s easy to describe the scene at Cline’s winter cover shoot with TODAY.com, because when she enters the room, all eyes are on her. The crew’s excitement doesn’t seem to faze her, though. She heads straight to the snacks, then greets everyone with a smile and hug. The star of one of Netflix’s biggest shows of all time is sans makeup and wearing a black Nike zip-up jacket, leggings and Ugg mini platform boots. Her arrival instantly makes the set feel less like a photo shoot, more like a slumber party.

Once Cline settles into the hair and makeup chair, she bops along to songs by ABBA (her request) and shimmies as Britney Spears pumps through the speakers. “Wait — why is this so much fun?” she asks on multiple occasions between sips of Champagne (also her request). It’s fitting for the 2023 version of a Hollywood starlet, a Gen Zer who represents a new kind of celebrity, one who’s managed to rise to fame through a pandemic, connect with millions of social media followers and navigate a very public relationship.

The vibe on set is a far cry from April 2020, when the world was stuck indoors a few weeks into a global pandemic. Back then, many TV viewers passed the time by binge-watching “Outer Banks,” an action-adventure drama about a group of working-class kids called the Pogues who embark on a dangerous treasure hunt. Cline portrays the fearless Sarah Cameron, known as the princess of the Outer Banks’ wealthy residents, the Kooks. Sarah comes from a reputable family and eventually falls for the Pogues’ ringleader, John B, played by Chase Stokes.

The combination of a missing-person mystery, class clashes and a “West Side Story”-esque romance made the series an instant hit. But it was Cline’s on-screen charm and depiction of Sarah’s courage and fierce loyalty — plus a signature pout and perfectly tousled beach hair — that instantly made her the series’ breakout star.

Three months after “Outer Banks” dropped, the show was renewed for a second season; after its debut week, Nielsen reported “Outer Banks” delivered 2.1 billion minutes of viewing across both seasons. Only an “elite club” of shows have crossed the 2 billion mark in a single week, Deadline reported at the time. Now, a third season is on its way this month, with the stakes even higher for “the luckiest kids alive,” as Cline calls them.

At the TODAY.com cover shoot, Cline is worlds away from the beaming sun and muddy marshes of “Outer Banks.” In a production warehouse outside of Los Angeles that gives off 1960s Palm Springs vibes, Cline jumps on a bed in a designer nighty, gleefully receiving refills of bubbly in her glass as the camera clicks away. At one point, out of poses to try next, she playfully turns toward the camera and starts twerking.

“This is what TODAY needs: booty!” she yells out with a laugh. “It’s not the content TODAY asked for, but it’s the content you got!”

Read more at Today.com

14 Feb 2023

07 Feb 2023

Madelyn for Cosmopolitan

Written by Emily

Madelyn is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. This might be my favorite shoot ever! Check out the photos in the gallery!

“I’ve always read other people’s cover stories that start like this. ‘Having lunch with so-and-so at somewhere.’ Like, ‘She sits across from me and….’”

Madelyn Cline trails off as she slides into her seat, seeming to grasp what until recently felt unimaginable to the 25-year-old: She is now the so-and-so. (And I truly can’t resist, so yes, she is indeed sitting across from me in a booth with Pacific Ocean views at Malibu Farm, the kind of L.A. place you get after typing “beach aesthetic” into Instagram Explore.)

Unimaginable to her because just three years ago, she was still a literal unknown struggling to get auditions. Not too long before that, she was living out of her car. And then…“it” happened—that almost mythical Hollywood win.

For Madelyn, “it” went like this: Netflix hired her to costar in its 2020 teen adventure drama Outer Banks, which quickly became one of the service’s most streamed shows (season 3 premieres February 23). Then came an American Eagle deal. Then she was cast in this winter’s blockbuster mystery Glass Onion. And suddenly, she was all anyone could google.

Now she’s at lunch with that expression on her face. The one that comes from finally looking up and feeling almost shocked that you’re here. I recognize it because I’m wearing the same one—a few years ago, I wasn’t a person asking these kinds of “what’s it like to be one of the world’s most exciting new stars?” questions over salmon Nicoise salads either. So maybe we’re both soaking in the moment a little. I make one of those jokes that’s not actually a joke about how I’m writing down her exact outfit (cream-colored cropped turtleneck, matching puffer vest, black jeans, white sneakers, and a little bit of eyeliner from yesterday’s cover shoot that she couldn’t get off). She kids about what else I’m writing. At one point, she gets annoyed with a persistent fly, kills it with her bare hands, and slips into a serious magazine writer voice: “She killed a fly. She would hurt a fly.”

Once we really get into it though, we both move past the What This Moment Means shock, and Madelyn remains fully present—impressive eye contact, zero phone-scrolling breaks—and disarmingly nice (she is, in her own words, one “friendly motherfucker”). So nice, in fact, that she offers to split the check with me, even though it’s my literal job to pay the bill. I get the feeling this is the first and last time she’ll have to offer.

How did you unwind last night? It was a 10-hour shoot day and you spent a lot of it holding a 12-pound bowling ball. I’m tired just saying that.
I went home and made homemade Animal Style fries, like from In-N-Out. But when I put the fries in the oil, it was so hot, it just exploded. They were scorched on the outside and completely raw on the inside. And I had a couple of glasses of wine and watched Game of Thrones.

Read more at the source

07 Feb 2023

05 Jan 2023

Beneath the Surface of Madelyn Cline

Written by Emily

Madelyn is featured on the January cover of WhoWhatWear! She looks absolutely amazing! Check out the new photos in the gallery!

Magazine Scans > 2023 > WhoWhatWear (January)
Photoshoots > 2023 > Session 01 | WhoWhatWear

I feel a flutter of anxiety rising in my chest as I prepare to Zoom with the magnetic Madelyn Cline. It’s hard not to be awed by the actress—do a quick Google search and you’ll understand why. Whether she’s sharing how she spends 24 hours with Vogue or gracing our screens as charismatic Sarah Cameron on the hit Netflix series Outer Banks, there’s something undeniably powerful and alluring about the 25-year-old. As the video call begins, Cline shoots me a wide grin and starts off with an energetic “Hey, buddy!” Immediately, I’m put at ease. Cline sits perched in a cozy bouclé chair in her L.A. home, exuding a friendly and calm demeanor. She’s completely present despite needing to catch an 18-hour flight to Thailand immediately after our chat. Bare-faced wearing a simple white tank, leggings, and the casual shoes of the moment (platform Uggs), she fusses with her mic, and I’m struck by her strong features and confident yet serene presence.

Cline is not a face one easily forgets, and it seems the media has no desire to do so. After catching everyone’s eye in Outer Banks, she kept the attention going with a strong American Eagle partnership and a noteworthy cameo in Kygo’s sultry music video for his remix of Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff.” Not to mention her repertoire of viral looks put together with the help of stylist Mimi Cuttrell, including her custom Versace look for the premiere of her latest buzzy project, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. At only 25, Cline has been thrust into a level of stardom that I predict will soar to unimaginable heights from here on out.

Glamour and fame aside, Cline takes it back to the beginning with me. When she tells me the story of her venture into acting, it feels like I’m hearing the intro of a classic coming-of-age film. Despite enrolling at Coastal Carolina University and moving into her dorm, she says the experience never felt right. The South Carolina native was jamming the wrong puzzle piece, trying desperately to make it fit. Eventually, Cline put the whole puzzle away, dropped out of college, and made a beeline to Los Angeles. She paints a picture of a prototypical teenage move to L.A.—living in apartments filled with bedbugs, couch surfing, and, amid all that, pursuing acting. “It was like throwing the noodle against the wall to see if it’ll stick,” she says. For Cline, there was no longer a plan B. Acting was the only plan. People might perceive her rather speedy climb to success as dreamlike, but like most Hollywood stories, there’s always more to it. “I remember thinking, ‘My life is in shambles. Why did I leave? Why did I leave college? Why did I leave my home? Why did I leave my family?’ But it all ended up being very serendipitous,” she reflects.

As a writer, serendipitous is exactly how I’d describe Cline’s uphill journey. After minor parts in Boy Erased and Stranger Things, she landed the role of Sarah in Outer Banks. She may have quickly fled from her old life, but filming the show brought her right back to her home base in South Carolina. “When I saw where Outer Banks was shooting, I was like, ‘Shit, I don’t want to go home,’” she says. “When I left, I kind of ran for the hills and was so excited to build a new life and make new routes. I was a little reluctant. But at the same time, I couldn’t pass it up. I knew from the first time I read the scripts that this is just amazing.” In the end, the actress was able to reestablish her relationships on her own terms—rewriting home for herself completely. The puzzle pieces may not have fit quite right before, but they finally clicked together when Outer Banks came into her life.
Continue reading…

05 Jan 2023