Nikki Rodriguez, Noah LaLonde, and Ashby Gentry talk love triangles, story arcs, and that Challengers costume.
For My Life with the Walter Boys stars Nikki Rodriguez, Noah LaLonde, and Ashby Gentry, this isn’t their first rodeo.
It’s been nearly two years since Season 1 of the lovable teen drama released in December 2023, and the overwhelming response has felt like a wild bronc that the series’ three leads have thankfully learned how to ride together. Filming the highly anticipated second season in Calgary, Canada last fall only made their bond stronger.
“This season we have so much trust in each other that there isn’t pressure to feel like we have to get a scene ‘right,’ ” Rodriguez tells Tudum between takes from filming on the set of the Walter family ranch. “We can just fully exist in the scene and know that someone’s going to have your back, which is nice.”
Season 2 kicks off at the end of the summer, which Jackie (Rodriguez) has spent interning in New York with her uncle Richard (Alex Quijano). But being back hasn’t quite felt the same. Alex (Gentry) went to rodeo camp in Montana to train — and mend his broken heart — since Jackie left town after he told her he loved her. And Cole (LaLonde)? Well, he’s been heads down in summer school wondering where he and Jackie stand after stealing a kiss in the Season 1 finale.
“Season 2 is about how our identities are fluid, how we discover who we are, and what we want by trying things on,” says Gentry. “Jackie, Alex, and Cole are all figuring out who they are by allowing themselves to change.”
Below, Rodriguez, Gentry, and LaLonde discuss the series’ steamy love triangle, their characters’ journeys this season, and that iconic Challengers Halloween costume.
On the love triangle
This season, “Jackie’s stuck in between two different worlds and two different guys,” says Rodriguez.
Jackie knows she left a trail of broken hearts behind when she went back to New York in the Season 1 finale. But Rodriguez doesn’t think Jackie is trying to play anyone. “She truly does feel a certain way for each one.” Her feelings for both brothers also tie back to Jackie’s sense of wanting control in her life but being drawn to what challenges her to grow. In her real life, Rodriguez feels similarly. “I’m really adventurous and love that adrenaline rush, but I’m also a person that feels like they need control,” she says. “It is very Jackie of me.”
Going into Season 2, Rodriguez kept this question in mind: “What is the difference between Alex and Cole?” And, in turn, how do they play into her sense of belonging in Colorado? “What Alex gives to Jackie is that he makes her feel like she does belong. He makes Jackie feel welcome, and she should be here,” says Rodriguez. Whereas Cole makes her think more critically. “Cole is a little bit more like, ‘Well, what do you want? Maybe you should explore that.’ ”
Alex spends his summer heartbroken, but we see no trace of it as he returns to Silver Falls with a fresh glow-up. “Sweet, innocent, lover, poetic Alex of Season 1 is pretty much gone, and I don’t know if he’s coming back,” says Gentry. “You’re getting popular, attractive, confident Alex.”
He doesn’t exactly welcome Jackie back with open arms, either. “We see him come back in resentment and in almost opposition to Jackie,” says Gentry. “I think he’s always suspected something went on [with Cole]. Season 1 was like watching his slow, perpetual heartbreak every time he saw them together.”
Cole and Jackie bonded in Season 1 because they’re both fixers trying to heal from loss. “Jackie represented a version of how things could be put back together,” says LaLonde. “He feels so much more optimistic when Jackie enters his life.” So after they kissed in the finale once Jackie realized Cole had mended her late sister’s teapot, Cole thought they understood each other. When she leaves without a word, Cole feels like, “Well, I’m the guy who fixes things, but the only thing I can’t seem to fix is myself.”
“You can’t control other people, only how you react. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to put all your cards on the table, and if the other person isn’t picking up what you’re laying down, you have to accept that. Cole has lost so much, in terms of what he thought his life was going to be, it’s pretty hard to think about not having any control over losing this connection now, too.”
On their character arcs
Season 2 finds Jackie trying to make the best of both her worlds: the Howard and Walter families, New York and Colorado. “She’s definitely not trying to lose either side of herself and is trying to make sure that they can coexist,” says Rodriguez. We also see Jackie allow herself to grieve more, “which I was really happy about because Jackie’s going through so much.”
Part of Jackie trying to figure out where she belongs in Season 2 involves getting her driver’s license. In real life, Rodriguez passed on her first try. “I was surprisingly a pretty good driver. I’ve somehow gotten worse,” she says. On set, she had to learn how to drive a stick while acting. “It felt like a sheer panic attack every time I did it — no acting involved.”
As Alex trains to be a bronc rider in Season 2, Gentry tried to learn as much as he could about the sport. “I know all the steps. I know how to measure reins. I know about saddle and boot types and the markout rule [a requirement for a cowboy to exit the chute with his spurs in contact above the horse’s shoulders until the horse makes its initial jump, hitting the ground with its front two feet],” he says. “Both the riders and the horses are athletes, and I have a lot of respect for them.”
Each bond between a horse and its rider is unique, and Gentry was thrilled to get to ride his Season 1 horse, Copper, again. “It’s crazy how comfortable we are with each other. Coming back, it was like we had never left. I got back on him, and it felt like home.”
Cole’s Season 2 journey challenges him to face his grief straight on, as his loved ones convince him to become the assistant coach for the school’s football team. Coaching “helps him understand a way that he can move forward,” says LaLonde. “Whether it is coaching football or is football-related at all, it’s about how he realizes he is good at fixing things — identifying what the problem is, how you can fix it, and where your role is in that. That all pays off in the end, and it feels good when you do it.”
LaLonde can relate to Cole, as he ceased playing hockey in real life and helped his cousin coach the sport. Although stopping was LaLonde’s decision, “it was always tough,” he says. “I didn’t feel like I got everything I wanted out of my career. But at the same time, should all that time, energy, and love that I spent cultivating my own career go to waste? Or should I allow that to live on in the form of guidance for somebody else?”
About that viral Challengers costume
These three sure know how to play up their love triangle. When castmate Jaylan Evans (who plays Skylar) was hosting a Halloween party — just like his character does in Season 2 — Gentry proposed that he and his co-stars dress up as the amorous tennis-playing trio in the 2024 movie Challengers.
“When he said it, I was like, ‘How did I not think of this?’ ” says Rodriguez. “Because Halloween is my favorite holiday, I’d been talking about dressing up all month.” Rodriguez hates last-minute costumes because she either wants to go all out or not do anything. “But Ashby said the idea, and it was so good that it was like, all right, we’ll do it!”
The trio quickly pulled their look together in just an hour with clothes purchased at a local Calgary Goodwill. “It was definitely a team effort,” says Gentry. Their costume was so spot-on that it quickly went viral as soon as Rodriguez posted it on her TikTok account. “The churros were Noah’s idea, and we got them from Subway right before. Nikki drew the ‘I Told Ya’ onto my shirt.” LaLonde was the most excited about having edible props. “There’s nothing I love doing more than sharing food with Ashby Gentry,” he says.
My Life with the Walter Boys Season 2 is now streaming, only on Netflix.
Styling: Leah Adicoff
