Maggie Thurmon Gushes About Working with Josh Duhamel (Exclusive)

Maggie Thurmon has only good things to say about Josh Duhamel!

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the 23-year-old influencer and actor opened up about spending the day with Duhamel on the set of The Big Deal Show, a new video series from car resale site CarGurus.

“He was just so down to earth — so lovely,” says Thurmon. “You can tell he’s a dad.”

In the ad spot, the content creator, who has over 5 million followers on TikTok, chats with Duhamel about some of their biggest moments inside their cars.

“I think we were on set for maybe five hours,” recalls Thurmon. “We probably shot so much content that will never see the light of day, but it was all fun. We had hours of conversation, it was awesome.”

But before she started shooting, Thurmon admits, she was “a little nervous” about whether she and the Transformers actor “would get along.”

“You just never know how another talent person is going to be,” says the influencer. “Literally within the first few words with him, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be OK.’ Like, I’m not even doing this on my own — we’re in this together. Banter was so easy. Conversation was so easy. He’s a gem.”

Thurmon shot into the spotlight by posting content to TikTok in 2019, and has also made headlines for her relationship with pop singer Benson Boone, whom she went public with last year.

Aside from content creation, she nabbed her first major acting gig in the 2023 romance movie The Other Zoey — sharing the screen with Outer Banks star Drew Starkey.

Recalling filming The Other Zoey, she admits that she was “so green to L.A.” at the time but remembered thinking afterward, ‘it is only up from here.'”

However, amid the writers’ strike, her career took an unexpected turn as everything in Hollywood “slowed down.” After a brief lull, she says she’s excited to get back in front of the camera.

“Things are starting to get exciting,” she reveals.

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“There’s a few things I can’t talk about in the moment. I’m very excited for that aspect of my life to more so take center stage,” adds Thurmon of acting.