Fiona Palomo was feeling some nerves becoming a member of the tight-knit solid of Outer Banks — and it did not assist that she was approaching as a love curiosity to one of many present’s most thirsted-after characters.
Palomo, 26, was first launched as Sofia in season 3 of the Netflix sequence (earlier than she was upped to sequence common for season 4), and she or he tells PEOPLE it was “terrifying” to consider how followers would react to her character’s blossoming romance with Rafe Cameron (Drew Starkey).
“It is like, ‘I am about upset a whole lot of ladies on the market,'” she jokes. “However it’s cool. It is unbelievable to be on a undertaking…the place individuals are so invested within the characters and what’s taking place.”
“It is cool to be like, ‘Oh God, I do not know the way this character’s going to be acquired, as a result of it is like this character and it is this actor and it is all these little issues,'” she provides. “However I feel that simply speaks to how large of a factor [Outer Banks] is, and I am simply so pleased that folks have been type to me [thus] far.”
She even introduced it as much as Starkey, 30, himself, who is not as unaware of the web thirst for him because it may appear. She recollects, “We’d simply be sitting on set, I might be like, ‘I do know when this comes out, it will be like, ‘Keep away from him!’ And we’d giggle about it. He is like, ‘Yeah, most likely.'”
Although it was “slightly formidable to see how [Sofia] was going to be acquired” forward of the Oct. 10 premiere of season 4 half 1, Palomo says, “I really feel just like the love — or the kindness — I put into Sofia, and simply ensuring that character labored properly and every part, is getting blown again and it simply feels actually well-received and really liked and it is very nice. I am actually, actually grateful.”
It exhibits her how “invested” the followers are, she says earlier than including, “I’ve simply seen actually, actually type issues, and so they actually like her, and so they’re even defending her and being like, ‘Sofia, you deserve higher.’ I am like, ‘What is going on on?'”
Palomo has nothing however flattering issues to say about working with Starkey — who’s performed the offended, violent older brother to Madelyn Cline’s Sarah Cameron since season 1 — as she describes him as “so type, skilled and welcoming.”
He could not be extra completely different from his character, she affirms. “I used to be flown out to Charleston to perform a little chem learn with him, I assume, and that is after I met him. And I keep in mind — you’ve this daunting picture of Rafe and clearly you are conscious it is an actor — however he was simply very nice.”
That simply speaks to “how superb of an actor” he’s, she says.
“He actually cares for his craft a lot, and I do too, so it was actually lovely to have the ability to have somebody care that a lot to take a seat down and make sense out of those characters and have it really feel like they’ve spent all this time collectively that you simply by no means see onscreen.”
Constructing Rafe and Sofia’s backstory collectively was an essential a part of their prep for season 4, Palomo says, for the reason that new installment sees their relationship progress to the purpose that Rafe is making guarantees about their future collectively.
She is aware of, too, that simply taking a look at Sofia, a “Pogue” with a working-class household, “You simply need to sit down and be like, ‘Sofia, we have to discuss this.'”
However she sees some nuance to the unhealthy boy, good woman cliché of all of it, notably contemplating Sofia’s household’s cultural background. She shares, “[She’s] very heat and it’s extremely straightforward [for her] to lean into individuals and belief and need to sort of handle them. So I feel she actually thinks — [being with Rafe is] not intimidating to her. I feel she’s simply very able to embrace all his components and every part that he’s.”
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“It is actually unbelievable that by means of some kindness and love, an individual might probably really be extra in contact with themselves,” she says of how Sofia is perhaps altering Rafe, who has been “by means of such loopy occasions,” together with the demise of his father, Ward Cameron (Charles Esten) in season 3.
As for the rumors that Starkey is possibly essentially the most aloof of the solid?
“I am conscious of this myself, however I additionally watch my castmates discuss how simply unaware he’s of his cellular phone basically. Like, interval,” she says. “However that is cool. He is like this cool nineties child. He is similar to, ‘I do not know the place I left my cellphone. It could possibly be anyplace on the set.’ And it is cool. He is simply dwelling.”
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Half 1 of Outer Banks season 4 is now streaming on Netflix, and Half 2 premieres Nov. 7.