raised as she realized just how many people out there were trying to break into acting. “I realized there are thousands of me,” she says. “And that was really scary.” Neverthe- less, Cline persisted, and the fruits of her labor paid off. She eventually booked her starring role in Netflix’s hit adventure-drama series Outer Banks and will star in Rian Johnson’s anticipated film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. As for acting, Cline always knew putting herself in a character’s shoes was something she wanted to delve into headfirst. “I always remember my mom would take me to the libraries, and if they had a movie section,” she says, “she would let me pick out five or six movies every week. And a lot of times, they were older movies like The Philadelphia Story, and Splendor in the Grass, and I was really into James Dean. I just remember watching those movies, and then going and reading plays, and thinking how fun to be in the shoes of the actor, in that place of empathy. And I remember thinking if I’m sitting here in this theater, watching this, feeling these emotions, I can’t imagine how fun it would be to be in that place, where you could just step into the life of someone else and play.” In Outer Banks, Cline plays Sarah Cameron, an adventurous, quick-witted teen who becomes embroiled in a romance with John B (Chase Stokes), while at odds with her manipulative father, Ward (Charles Esten), and troubled brother Rafe (Drew Star- key).The forthcoming season three will see its way onto Netflix in 2023, and until then, I am trying to get everything I can out of Cline about the much-talked-about season, the plot of which is largely under wraps. She likens the recent third season filming process to “feeling like school’s back in session,” with the most “warm, familial group ever.” In the juicy second season of OB , Cline’s character Sarah sets off trepidatiously, facing many obstacles after being nearly drowned and shot on two separate occasions by her brother, watching her father supposedly blow himself up in a yacht, and being drugged and kidnapped by her stepmother. Sarah often finds herself caught in an inner conflict between trusting her friends, known as the “Pogues”—a name ascribed on account of their working-class status—and her elite upper-class family. Season two ends with the crew of friends stranded on a deserted island sans their desired treasure, with their families assuming the Pogue clan is missing—or worse, dead. “I think the resounding theme of season three is fighting for what’s right,” Cline emphasizes. “But I think it also has to do with family. Family is who you’re born into, but you also have the ability to choose—to choose who your family is. And sometimes that’s hard.That’s a difficult decision to make or a difficult place to come to in learning who you are in the process and learning who your family really is to you.” Because Cline has lived as Sarah for three seasons, she finds pieces of familiarity in the cast dynamics. Deeply exploring the changes her character is going through, though, Cline finds herself personally disagreeing with some of Sarah’s choices. “When we started the show,” she considers, “I think I definitely put pieces and parts of me, and pieces and parts of my teenage self that I remembered, into her in terms of insecurities,” she says. “But I think, as I’ve grown, Sarah has grown as a character, so I don’t know if I always relate to her. I love her, obviously, but we are two separate entities. It becomes more fun because it becomes less familiar.” Cline proclaims that the upcoming season was the most physically demanding and perhaps emotionally taxing of the three. An added layer of challenge arose from the unpredictable stormy weather patterns of filming in the humid beach town of Charles- ton, South Carolina. Cline personally grew up a mere thirty minutes from her Outer Banks filming location in Goose Creek. As she reminisces over her childhood in the Palmetto state, she shares how the familiarity with going home at times after filming
s the great william shakespeare once wrote: what’s past is prologue. For 24-year- old actor Madelyn Cline, living in the pres- ent means recognizing that life is a sea- sonal myriad, where history does set some context for the now, but moving like water and embracing the unknown is paramount to a centered spirit. Cline’s most potent re- flection on her career in the course of our conversation? “The biggest thing for me is: why let myself get anxious or tense about it when I could just lean into it?” Cline is in her home in Los Angeles, dressed down casually in a hoodie, sur- rounded by what appears to be meticu- lously detailed artwork on the walls in the background. It’s hard to keep up with the bustling whereabouts of the film and TV star, whether she’s drifting around the dunes of Dubai, or getting ready for the world premiere of her film at the Toron- to International Film Festival. Cline be- gins by recounting the start of her career, marked by a hasty departure from her uni- versity at the time, Coastal Carolina. After booking stints on the roaringly famous sci-fi thriller series, Stranger Things, and vampire fantasy series, The Originals, Cline called her mom one day to tell her she was dropping out of college, packing up her dorm that night, and moving to Los Ange- les. While Cline admits she didn’t put too much thought into the decision, she knew her choice was righteous. “My whole thing was: why would I stay in school to pursue a professional career when I have one sitting in front of me?” Once Cline made the East to West Coast move, the stakes were immediately
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