Pick a side. There is only one right answer, and the team you choose says everything about you. So which one will it be? Team Alex or Team Cole?
This is the kind of rhetoric under any of Netflix’s social posts about My Life With the Walter Boys, the popular young-adult soap about to air its second season. The comments section is an arena that belongs to the battleground of YA ’shippers, a committed and cutthroat sector of fandom that rivals those of even the world’s biggest professional sports teams.
Earlier this summer, the show’s main trio — Nikki Rodriguez, 22, Ashby Gentry, 26, and Noah LaLonde, 27 — got to see that arena come to life when they attended Netflix’s annual Tudum event in Los Angeles. They participated in an onstage crossover with stars from the streamer’s other shows that make up its current and extremely successful YA slate. Alongside the leads of Ginny & Georgia, Outer Banks, and Forever, the MLWTWB actors attempted to answer fan questions over the deafening screams, as handmade signs that read “Go for Cole!” and “Team Alex!” waved above their heads like banners.
“I never would've thought we would meet all those people,” a wide-eyed Gentry says of the Tudum event. It’s two weeks later in New York, and the trio are on the set of their MOMENT by Teen Vogue cover shoot, still giddy from a rousing game of I Dare You. “Every so often I take stock of it and I look around... It's really wild, the stuff we've gotten to do since [the show has] come out — it has really blown my mind.”
My Life With the Walter Boys, the series adaptation of Ali Novak’s 2014 hit Wattpad novel of the same name, debuted in December 2023 and became one of Netflix’s 10 most-watched English-language series within its first eight weeks. The show — which has already been granted an early renewal for season 3 — belongs to the latest wave in the YA boom, and Team Alex and Team Cole (and Team Jackie) are gearing up to go head-to-head once more when the teen drama’s second season arrives on August 28.
After a climactic end to season 1, Jackie returns to Silver Falls, Colorado, to deal with the fallout of her hasty summer escape to New York and that heartstopping kiss with the “wrong” Walter boy. Along with The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3, the sophomore season of My Life With the Walter Boys will cement summer 2025 as the summer of sibling love triangles.
But the show is, of course, about much more than an awkward romantic entanglement. My Life With the Walter Boys, like TSITP, may seem like a typical coming-of-age romance on the surface, but it is actually a story devoted to unpacking different kinds of grief.
As we have seen through the loss of Jackie’s immediate family in season 1, tragedy comes in many shapes, with many layers. Just growing up can feel like one long, tragic experience. With that in mind, My Life With the Walter Boys season 2 is about trying: making the effort to grow, testing new versions of oneself, attempting to heal wounds instead of avoiding them until they fester.
There are secrets and passions and glow-ups and clashes and new romantic interests. This season is… well… “It's complicated,” Rodriguez tells us, tiptoeing around spoilers. That’s one way to put it. Below, My Life With the Walter Boys stars Nikki Rodriguez, Noah LaLonde, and Ashby Gentry discuss their characters’ transformations in season 2, what they want from their individual arcs in season 3, and how they manage to block out the noise of unrelenting fan discourse online.
Ashby Gentry: We all [learned to] play [Settlers of] Catan in season 1, and I was sitting across from them and remember being like, "Do you guys think anyone's actually going to watch this show?"
Noah LaLonde: You had your floor established: “Nobody's going to see it.” But I don't think you really had a good hold on what the ceiling could be.
Nikki Rodriguez: It's hard to know what you're in when you're in the middle of it.
Gentry: [Nikki and I] met on FaceTime, and I thought, “Man…”
Rodriguez: Let's hear it!
Gentry: You were asking me a bunch of questions. You were like, "When are you getting there? Did you get the scripts yet? We have the table read really soon and I haven't read anything, I'm a little nervous." And I thought, “Man, this girl is scared and has no clue what's going on, just like me! We're going to get along fine.” [Laughs]
[With] Noah, I was like — I tend to be overconfident, that's one of my flaws. Shocker. I remember thinking, “How am I playing the less hot brother? That doesn't make any sense. Who are they going to bring in? I don't get it.” And then at the table read, I remember looking at Noah and being like, “Oh, okay, I get it now, yeah.”
LaLonde: I felt a little intimidated, because I had known Nikki from On My Block, and I had seen [her] character. Then when we had our first conversation, you just had such a passion and intensity about you. [And My Life With the Walter Boys] having been my first big job, it immediately gave me this sense of, “I’ve got my work cut out for me. I need to bring it, because this girl is in this for real.”
Gentry: I was also surprised at how similar we all were. We all have the same level of ambition and take work very seriously, which is not always the case. I just felt a very solid kinship with both of you right off the bat. It really did feel like we were triplets, in a way.
LaLonde: You hear so many stories historically on TV shows [especially ones] that are long-running, when the cast is a cast onscreen but they want nothing to do with each other off of it, and you have to consider that possibility. [But] it wasn't even really something I ever considered as soon as I met them — we're like a little family.
LaLonde: Simply, they need to both continue to mature. They're young, and I think stuff gets really messy at that time in everyone's life. That immaturity elevates everything that's going on around them. The passage of time would do them wonders; maybe a conversation that isn't brought on by an intense situation, too.
Gentry: I think time and space. I have a friend who I went through a very similar situation with in high school, where we were both involved with the same girl, and for a long time we didn't speak because of it. Then he reached out to me and we mended our friendship, and now we are really, really close. But in spite of that, whenever she gets brought up, it is a little speed bump in the conversation. It never fully heals. There's a good Bob Dylan quote: “You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way." I don't know if Alex and Cole will ever be through it.
LaLonde: That's why I was thinking time and space until—
Gentry: —until they can live with it.
LaLonde: That's what makes the show so interesting moving forward, is we really don't know.
Gentry: I actually don't know how they're going to do it.
Gentry: I've been in two, not including this one. Dude, I showed our showrunner [Melanie Halsall] my love triangle texts in season 1 because one of them was fresh.
Gentry: Yeah. She was like, "Oh, this is good." And I was like, "Don't get any ideas, Melanie!" [To Nikki] What about you, have you ever been [in one]?
Rodriguez: No.
Gentry: There's a first time for everything.
Rodriguez: I would never be in that position. I wouldn't put myself in that position.
Gentry and LaLonde (in unison): Nobody puts themselves there, they find themselves there!
Gentry: Wow. I think he has yet to take stock of what Kiley means to him, and I think when he does that, he will feel a decent amount of guilt about what he's done. He should treat her the way she deserves to be treated — that's the only road to mending that relationship.
Rodriguez: She does! No, I don't. I'll be honest, I'm so opposite.
Gentry: Thank God.
Rodriguez: No, I'm so, so opposite of that. I don't have time for that, it's too much work.
Rodriguez: With Alex, he's so kind and loving and makes her feel safe in this new place where she doesn't feel like she belongs. Since the beginning, Alex makes her feel like she belongs in Colorado… trying to make her feel somewhat at home, or as much [home] as it could be for her.
With Cole, he challenges her and he's passionate — and a little bit like the person you feel like you shouldn't really love, so there's always that. They're very different, but it's so layered, and that's why I think it's a hard choice for Jackie. It's complicated.
Gentry: Oh dude, yeah. I felt an immense amount of pressure… It felt like returning home in a lot of ways, but this time people knew who we were. It's easy to call into question who you're doing the show for. Am I doing it for TikTok comments? Am I doing it for the writers? Am I doing it for Netflix? Am I doing it for fans? And ultimately, I feel like I'm doing it for me. But it was tough, and it’s still tough thinking about going back to season 3. Trying not to let those voices get too loud is really tricky.
Rodriguez: Yeah, I think that's a great point, because you don't want to let what anybody has to say get in your head when you're filming. And that's easier said than done. I was a little bit nervous to go back and play Jackie again. I was like, "I don't know, can I play Jackie again?" There was a time break and I just wasn't sure. But I think we all handled it well. We like to lean on each other, and we did a nice job this season with that, as much as we could.
Gentry: We keep each other pretty grounded.
Gentry: I would've said, “Forget it. Move on, man!”
Gentry: Yeah! Be nice, but forget about it. Move on. I do not get hung up in the way that [Alex does]… And thank goodness he does, because I love to watch it. But if I was giving genuine advice to him, I'd be like, "Focus on yourself. Chase a check, Alex, do not worry about this." I love watching him get messy, so I wouldn't change it, but that's the advice I would give — and I’d hope he didn't listen so I could watch him fumble.
LaLonde: I would tell [Cole] to look around and stop waging a war with himself. Trust the people around him. He's got this huge family of people who care about him. He has a lot of intangible abilities that maybe he hasn't figured out how to apply in the real world, that he developed playing football and being in athletics. [He should] trust that he's capable.
LaLonde: [Nodding] Don't let every time you get tripped up be the thing that keeps you down! When you're about to fall, lean on your twin brother Danny, lean on Jackie in the way that she's always there for you. But don't let the difference between maintaining those relationships and destroying them be so thin. So: Trust the people around you, trust that you're loved, love yourself.
Rodriguez: I would say a lot to Jackie. I would [especially] say two things: “Stop putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect because—”
LaLonde: —Because girl, you already are!
Rodriguez: [Laughs] Yes. And also, I just think when you put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect, you're going to make mistakes. It's inevitable. I would say, “Be kinder to yourself, Jackie. And try not to make a mess when you go back [to Colorado].”
Gentry: It was always apart. We weren't even super-beholden to the book in the first [season]. After season 1, there was no tie to the book whatsoever.
Gentry: I'm still worried about the fan response.
LaLonde: I saw Ashby Gentry as Alex Walter on the first day [of shooting season 2], and I said, "Well, there goes Team Cole." This guy! The glow up, it’s very— he always looks great, but he's magnetic as soon as he walks off the bus in the first episode.
Like you said, mine is more of a mental, emotional development. I don't think that's as fun and exciting as the visuals of these two, so I was excited to watch their transformations and to see how people like them, because the way it manifests in the story is very interesting.
Gentry: I was terrified, still am terrified. I was so worried I was going to get fired because I didn't pull it off or something. I was worried I was going to get fired for not being pretty enough in the first season, and then they wrote me a prettier arc and I was like, "Oh great." And when you're given a glow-up in a script, it forces you to call into question, like, “Well, what needed to glow-up in the first place?”
Rodriguez: Nothing!
Gentry: I remember I got on the phone with Melanie, our showrunner, and she said, "You're going to have a glow-up." And I said, "But Melanie, I look the same, though." And then we talked it through, but no, I was terrified. I still am terrified. I don't know if it's going to work. I do think Alex looks very different and is very different.
Gentry: Yeah, I think it's outside-in for sure. I really am happy with it, personally. I watch it and I think, “Wow, okay, feels to me like a different character.” Will other people see it that way? I have no clue. Am I going to gain some team members? Probably not. But one can only hope.
LaLonde: I don't know, with that [great] tan? It ain't messing around!
Gentry: I'm chronically online. I see everything.
Rodriguez: I feel like we're all tapped in.
Gentry: Yeah, it's fascinating. I can't look away because some of the stuff we see is crazy. I feel like people, especially friends of mine, would not expect me to be as tapped in as I am. And I don't try to, I just get the notifications. It finds you.
Rodriguez: You're not even looking for it, it just appears. I wish I missed [some of] it.
LaLonde: It is fascinating speaking to the audiences of types of shows like these, and how it can feel like a sports game. It is a team. You post a photo from a totally non-related Walter Boys event and the first comments are all like, "Team Alex! He's cute though."
It's exciting on aggregate to see all of the excitement around what we do, however that manifests. Some comments are nicer than others. But ultimately, to think that we made that thing that people are so passionate about and so involved in still is really exciting, and a testament to what we [do]. And that's fun….I want to see it unfold sometimes.
Gentry: This is maybe just a singular tactic, but the way I approach it is I try to keep myself looking because I feel like the ideal world for me is to be able to see it and not let it change my perception of myself, rather than to run from it.
The future that I see for myself, and for all of us, is that there is no more running from it — you're past that point. There is no going back to full anonymity unless it's a choice. I actively try to live with it and to see all the stuff. I don't go looking for it, but when I see it I don't look away because, firstly, it's interesting, and sometimes it's really funny. On top of that, I'm practicing not letting that stuff get to me as much — not letting it change who I know that I am on my own.
Gentry: I gotta stop my mom from responding!
Gentry: Susan wants to get in the comments and be a soldier, and it's like, “No!” [Laughing] She tells me all the time, like, "Man, I wish I could just comment back!" And I'm like, "You can't! You can't comment back, so just observe and talk to your therapist about it."
Rodriguez: No, I'm not a big comment reader. Sometimes I'll just look at it for a second, but I really try not to read too many comments because I just, I don't know, I like to live in peace. I choose peace.
LaLonde: As far as clapping back... I don't think that is what we are supposed to be doing. Right time and place, sure. But [fans] being so involved is very [on brand for] this type of show, this YA love triangle show. It's fun to enjoy and sit back and entertain it to a certain degree, because there's a chance we never have that type of fan participation in another project.
We could have tremendously successful careers and never have that type of action in the comment section [again]. And like you said, Ashby, your family, your friends, it's not secret — it's all out there. I watch some people acknowledge that, like, "Yo, you know these guys you're calling ‘ugly’ are people, right?" And then you get people advocating for [kindness], or just really hilarious stuff.
Gentry: I didn't even know what the term “ick” meant until it was being applied to me on a global scale.
LaLonde: It was not a global scale!
Rodriguez: No, no—
Gentry: Well, it was in season 1! But either way, I laugh, we all laugh about it. I made so many jokes in season 2 when we were filming about, "Oh, careful of running, it gives the ick.” Like from those notes app TikToks, where they have the list of things that give the ick? I definitely do smile in season 2, but I make jokes all the time about, like, "Yeah, see, I learned never to smile with my teeth!"
It truly is in jest, though, it's all in humor. Because I think it's important to me that I would never actually allow [those comments] to influence my behavior in any regard. So I think part of that power lies within being able to think it's humorous.
Gentry: When you're getting flak online, and then you see it's from a literal 12-year-old, it really puts it into perspective for you. You're just like, “Okay, maybe this doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.” [Laughs]
Rodriguez: Okay. [Sits up straight] It's interesting, because I feel like my job is to justify Jackie's actions; so to me, she's not trying to be the villain. She went through a completely traumatic, forever-life-altering event, and is thrown into this whole uncomfortable new world and space! I feel like she's just trying her best, and she makes mistakes — as everyone does at that age especially. And she's not perfect, but who is?
Gentry: Nobody's a villain when they're 15 and in love.
Gentry: I think I'd like Alex to be a bit more cumulative. I watched a scene of Nikki and I in season 2, and then immediately went and watched the first scene we ever had in season 1 — it's so different, not even just physically, but personality-wise. Our showrunner talked with me a lot about this, where there would be moments in season 2 where it was “Old Alex,” as she called him. She was like, "This is Old Alex right now, it's not New Alex."
It'd be really interesting in season 3 to have those two people merge and have a cumulative personality that has elements of both [versions of him]. I'd like to see him be confident and not a d*ckhead. That'd be really nice. Hopefully they write that for me. [Laughs]
LaLonde: While when [Cole] falters it can be in the form of self-sabotage, in spite of everything I would want him to continue to push through because each time he has gotten back up, and each time he has been a little bit more motivated.
I think there are a lot of spots in season 2 in particular where the valleys are not as low. He hit a pretty deep valley when he was stumbling drunk at his mother's award night, and then everything happens at the end of season 1. But I don't think any of those valleys get quite as low [in season 2], and I think he tries to make the peaks a little bit higher when he gets back up.
He's faced with the idea that he has these feelings for Jackie, but the person that he lets himself become is not good enough for her. So if he wants to allow that relationship to ever actualize, he has to maintain being the person he can be. So continuing to stand back up [and] try to be consistent and own up to what you've done. I think we start to see shades of that, and I would hope that he would continue that in season 3 — and I'm very excited to see if he does.
Rodriguez: I would like Jackie to heal more in season 3. I think in season 1… she doesn't want to ever talk about [tragedy] or process it. It's very avoidant, which is relatable, I feel. In season 2, I think even without realizing it, some of those feelings start to bubble up. You see her break down in ways she doesn't expect, and it comes through in certain moments when she's not expecting it. She's starting to work through it in her own way.
But season 3, I would really like to see her deal with it a little more head-on, as much as she can, and try to heal as best she can. It’s going to be a long process, of course, but I'm interested to see that journey.
Gentry: We can't say that, we're planning! We gotta plan.
LaLonde: We don't have anything we can yet disclose.
Rodriguez: But I'm really looking forward to it.
Gentry: Well, we did think about doing the Harry Potter trio.
Rodriguez: Yeah, we almost did Harry Potter, but we couldn't find the costume that day.
Gentry: We should do Ed, Edd n Eddy.
LaLonde: I wasn't allowed to watch that show.
Gentry: Me neither, actually. I just think that'd be crazy.
LaLonde: I feel the pressure to live up to last year.
Gentry: Nikki was the driving force [for Challengers], so I have to give her credit.
LaLonde: Maybe [this year’s] love triangle will approach us.
Gentry: There's this question that occurs to me a lot: Is this my prime? Is this the peak? What's it going to be like from here? My hypothesis for an answer — because I don't know and I don't really care that much, either — is I feel like you always gotta assume you're in your prime. And if I just assume I'm always in my prime, then maybe it'll never end.
But it feels like our moment because I've gotten to see them two weeks in a row and we're not even filming, which is crazy, because that doesn't usually happen… These guys are across the country. It truly just takes my breath away. Sometimes I gotta look around and clock that everything is real.
LaLonde: Can I say where we’re at?
LaLonde: We're in the World Trade Center in New York City, looking out at the water, the sun is shining, and in the last month, our third season renewal has been announced. Thinking back to all this stuff we've been reflecting on all day long, these introductions, these what-ifs that don't feel too far away — that wasn't the moment. What we're in is this sustained moment. The show has life and people care enough to continue to watch, and they believe in us enough to bring us back again. And we are excited to do that. It feels like every second we spend together, every second we get to be involved in this process, I feel more comfortable and more like I belong here doing it.
As soon as we got the call for season 2, it was like, "Oh my gosh, we get to do it again! It wasn't just a one-time thing!” Now it's not even out and we get to go back for season 3. It just feels like the sun is shining on us right now.
Like I was saying with Cole, you have to ride those peaks and valleys. But this ride is one that we have fast-pass admission to, and we get to ride that coaster a couple of times before the run with this show is over and whatever comes next. It feels like a hell of a moment to be in.
Rodriguez: There's this quote [from The Office], and I feel like it's super fitting: “I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you actually left them.” I feel like that is so fitting for this situation, because it is so crazy to be here.
Sometimes I get worried that it will all pass me by, and then I'll look back and not really feel like I experienced the moment fully. So that is my intention: to be fully present every moment. Maybe our prime is forever, maybe we're in the moment forever. You never know.
LaLonde: Who decides your prime? Why not us?
Gentry: When we were in prep for this [interview, they asked us the question], “What do you see yourself doing in 10 years, and what do you see yourself doing in 20 years?” And my answer was: “Exactly what I'm doing right now, with these guys.”
LaLonde: Season 20!
Gentry: Season 24!
LaLonde: Our Life With the Walter Boys.
Production Credits
Photographer OK McCausland
Photo Assistants Jon Knox and Laura Bregman
Design Director Emily Zirimis
Senior Designer / Production Liz Coulbourn
Associate Visuals Editor / Production Lead Bea Oyster
Backdrop Maisie Sattler
Retouching Michelle Pesante
Grooming for Ashby Courtesy of Laura Costa
Grooming for Noah Courtesy of Ben Jones
Styling for Noah Courtesy of Daniela Viviana Romero. Noah wears Versace.
Hair for Nikki Courtesy of Stefano Greco at The Wall Group
Makeup for Nikki Courtesy of Nadia Tayeh
Styling for Nikki Courtesy of Daniela Viviana Romero. Nikki wears Dior, Ivi Los Angeles and Alice Pierre.
Editorial Credits
Editor-in-Chief Versha Sharma
Executive Editor Danielle Kwateng
Features Director Brittney McNamara
Talent Director Eugene Shevertalov
Associate Culture Director P. Claire Dodson
Culture Editor / MOMENT Lead Kaitlyn McNab
Talent Booker Paige Garbarini
Associate Director of Audience Development & Analytics Mandy Velez Tatti
Senior Manager, Social Media Honestine Fraser
Senior Manager, Social Media Jillian Selzer
Video Credits
Associate Director, Creative Development Amalie MacGowan
DP Charlie Jordan
CamOp Lauren Pruitt
Sound Lily van Leeuwen
Editor Chris Jones
Producer Alexandra Tauber
