Madelyn Cline Keeps It Real—Interview

After that, she’d be off to the Dream It Convention in Paris, where she’d appear in and out of character as Outer Banks’s Sarah Cameron, the role that has become her star vehicle, followed by a detour to St. Vincent and the Grenadines for a Tommy Hilfiger event (Cline is a Tommy Girl, as well as a Revlon brand ambassador), then Spain, to film a movie, then Charleston, to shoot the fifth and final season of Outer Banks. As usual, she tossed some pairs of pajamas and jeans into her suitcase. “I go from home, to set, and back,” she says wearily. Also in her luggage are her Apple TV or PlayStation, along with a Max Mara bag and fragrances from Frederic Malle and Byredo.

A large blazer and larger Bottega Veneta hobo conspire to make Cline appear even smaller than she is. Her pixieness is undercut by a deep, pan-seared voice afflicted with a chronic case of sailor’s mouth. (On her old reluctance to tell the truth: “I never wanted to be caught with my dick in my hands. But now I’m like, fuck it.”)

Cline’s ascent happened at just the right time. OBX, as it’s come to be known, can be called one of the great hits of the streaming age, helped in no small part by the show’s timely premiere in April 2020; the show, a gorgeously cast teen Treasure Island, drifts not too far from the shores of reality. (Cline and her other-side-of-the-tracks love interest, played by the heartthrob Chase Stokes, dated for several months, but broke up in 2021.) Data company Luminate estimated 1.2 billion minutes were watched during the most recent season 4’s premiere week, which nets out to more than 2,000 years of consecutive viewing, give or take a decade.