Outer Banks star Drew Starkey finds himself technologically challenged when it comes to social media — just like Us.
“I had a private account at one point,” he admitted in an interview with Cosmopolitan, which was published on Tuesday, October 1. “Now I don’t know how to get in.”
Starkey, 30, chose to solve the situation by making a new account. “I’d sent everyone on my Close Friends, ‘Hey guys, here’s my finsta [Fake Instagram] account, follow me,’” he recalled. “It’s good for keeping up with people … but I have a hard time on it.”
The actor has dealt with the darker side of being online since Outer Banks debuted in 2020.
“Yeah, it can be really cruel. I’m an incredibly sensitive person,” Starkey noted. “It’s also a tough thing because we’ve been on this show for years. And that’s a bit different than doing a movie here, doing a movie there, and jumping around. This starts to become your identity in a lot of ways. Your relationship to the audience is intertwined with these characters that we’ve been playing. That can make jumping out of this world scarier.”
The hit Netflix series, which premiered in 2020, introduced viewers to a coastal town in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which is divided into wealthy and working-class sides. Meanwhile, a group of teenagers accidentally find themselves at the center of a dangerous treasure hunt.
While most of the main cast has played the protagonists, Starkey became a fan-favorite for his portrayal of villain Rafe Cameron. Starkey was asked by Cosmopolitan on Tuesday about what he would say to the fans who think they can fix his fictional character.
“I would say, ‘Good luck. You really got your work cut out for you,’” he quipped. “You’ve definitely seen Rafe very broken over the years, but I think where you find him this year is hopefully in a place of wanting to be better and to have a sense of family.”
In addition to Outer Banks, which premieres on Thursday, October 10, Starkey stars in the upcoming film Queer with Daniel Craig. He said he had no worries about how Outer Banks fans will receive his other work.
“No, not really. This is an entirely different project that will have an audience of its own. Of course, I would love the Outer Banks community to see other things that I’m in and everyone to love it, but that’s not something I can control,” he continued. “If you try to think about it like, ‘The things that I want to do in the future have to align with how I’m seen by certain audiences,’ you can corner yourself in. Of course, it’s in the back of your mind. There’s some concern over it. But you have to treat every project as its own island.”
Starkey also spoke out about the anxiety he has felt on the set of Outer Banks, which led to him not feeling fully present while working.
“All of us have talked about this a lot. At least for me, it’s always this anxiety that surrounds you. You know your capabilities as an actor, often you feel like you fall short of those,” he explained. “But I think with time, you start to relax into it. It took me a couple weeks into filming Queer to go, ‘Okay, I can let things go at the end of the day.’ As I get older, hopefully, I’ll be able to come into projects feeling that way immediately. Just go, ‘I need to enjoy this.’ Not go home at the end of the day and start freaking out about what you’ve done.”
He concluded: “It’s the same with any profession. When I was a server, I had the same thing. I would go home and be like, I was not very personable today. I forgot table three.”
