Jonathan Daviss and Carlacia Grant are two of the Black actors at the center of Netflix’s Outer Banks, and both are using the show’s final season to talk about what five years on set taught them about building a career, not just booking a role.

Every project is a classroom

Daviss, who plays Pope Heyward, told AFROTECH™ Culture he treats every project as a classroom.

“I compare it to college in a way, it was just a teaching experience,” he said. “I was learning how to be on set, learning how to come to work prepared, learning how to expand my range as an actor, learning the things I was good at, learning the things I, more importantly, wasn’t good at and could get better at.”

That’s the standard he said he now holds every new project to.

“I think that’s what I want with every project, I want everybody, every project I go on, I want to learn something new,” he said. “I want to feel like I’m expanding myself. I want to feel like I’m coming to set a student. That’s been my biggest thing when I look for other projects or when I’m auditioning for other projects, is how can I not only do the best work I possibly can do for this project, but how can I continue to grow as an actor and artist.”

Daviss said growing up alongside Pope, on screen and off, shaped who he became on set.

“It is true, like I was a teenager at the same time Pope was a teenager, so all of those lessons I kind of learned with him,” he said. “These were my brothers, these are my people I look up to, that kind of helped me along on my journey as an actor to grow and to get better.”

Grant on learning to advocate for herself

Grant, who plays Cleo Anderson, said the role taught her a different lesson, one about presence rather than range.

“It definitely teaches me to take up space, I’m here because I matter, I was chosen to be here and have my voice and use my voice and bring something to the table,” she said. “Don’t just take what’s on the page but say more, advocate for myself, advocate for my character. That’s something that I take with me in my life and in the industry.”

From a ‘little boat show’ to a global franchise

Daviss said Outer Banks itself started out as something much smaller than what it became.

“It was just a little baby boat show, a bunch of kids who were just on the wrong side of the tracks just looking for something to do,” he said. “To have it be this globe-trotting experience, what a joy, it’s kind of poetic the way the characters are getting into what they think is just a quick thing, oh we’ll turn this thing in for money, and then it ends up blowing up and doing way more than they thought they would ever do.”

He said that same jump, from something small to something far bigger than anyone expected, happened to the cast in real life as much as it did to the characters.

“It’s the same thing with us on the show, the small show that was just like a little teenage boat drama has all of a sudden become a globe trotting adventure action show,” he said. “I think it’s very poetic that it kind of mirrors what actually happened with us.”