Ashby Gentry Talks Alex’s Season 2 ‘Glow-Up’ (Exclusive)

My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 hinges on a major glow-up for Alex Walter — one that, presumably, leaves Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) unable to stay away from him when she returns to Silver Falls after fleeing her new home for a summer in New York City.

For Ashby Gentry, who plays Alex, that glow-up storyline was a double-edged sword.

“Without sounding cheesy or pretentious, it did feel like a physical transformation as an actor,” Gentry, 26, tells PEOPLE of his prep before he returned to Calgary to film season 2 after the meteoric success of season 1 in December 2023. “There was a lot of stuff I did.”

When he first learned that season 2 would see Alex return from the summer as a “hotter” version of himself, Gentry had mixed feelings.

“It is definitely difficult to not interpret it as a backhanded compliment,” he says of his initial reaction. “Especially when there are lines in the show directly saying that I’ve gotten hotter, when I’m like, ‘I look the same. I did not change.'”

The news was delivered to him by Melanie Halsall, showrunner of the series, which is based on Ali Novak’s 2014 book.

“My showrunner called me and was like, ‘You’re going to have a glow-up,'” he recalls. “And I was like, ‘But I look the same. So how does that work?’ And then she was like, ‘Well, we’re going to do all this stuff.'”

To make the glow-up happen onscreen, Gentry, ironically, just maintained more of his normal lifestyle, whereas he’d cut down on exercise for season 1.

“It’s not so much that I did stuff this season. It’s more so that I did stuff before, in season one,” he explains. “In season one, I lost a lot of weight and stopped going to the gym because I viewed Alex as a skinnier … I viewed Cole as this traditionally masculine figure, and I viewed Alex as — he’s a gamer. He is not out here doing pull-ups.”

Gentry also changed his hair for season 1, again, to match who he felt the character was. “Season one, I felt like Alex was more of a ragamuffin in a way, and so I put his hair in his face and stuff,” he explains.

This time around, he says, “The way my hair is in season two is just my hair. That’s just how I do my hair.”

Still, he stands by his assertion that season 1 Alex looked good. “I don’t think he looks bad in season one. A lot of people disagree with me, which is obviously, part of me, there’s a professional feeling about that, and part of me, there’s a personal feeling about that, but I disagree.”

“I rewatched season one and I still am like, ‘No, you guys were wrong. You guys were just straight up wrong.’ I look great in season one.”

Though he really just leaned into more of his own habits, he admits that it was “really stressful” that “the season hinges on me being hotter.”

“A lot of my research and prep for season two was very physical,” he shares. “It was researching glow-up stuff. I tried, over the summer, four different hairstyles to see which one I liked. I went to the gym. I got in really good shape. I made sure my skin was very on point.”

“It was hard for it, at times, to not just feel like a beauty pageant. And I was like, I am not qualified for that. I’m not signed to IMG,” he admits.

“So it was hard and it was a lot of pressure, and it did make me feel like s— about myself at times — though I disagree— but I’m happy with how it came out.”

It “wasn’t all bad,” he promises. “In spite of how I felt about it initially — that initial reaction of like, ‘Oh, well, why do I need a glow up in the first place?’ — it was very fun. It was a very fun and interesting thing to do, and I got to do a lot of cool stuff on set because of it — with the costumes and with hair and makeup.”

He continues, “And I learned a lot about how to stay in shape. I already was in really good shape before I shot season one, but I learned more about that, and I have some glow-up tips and tricks that I got from Nikki that I keep now, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I can use these whenever I want to feel good about myself.'”

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My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 premieres Thursday, Aug. 28 on Netflix.