In case you’re wondering, the answer is: No. No, it still hasn’t hit My Life with the Walter Boys stars Nikki Rodriguez (Jackie Howard), Noah LaLonde (Cole Walter), and Ashby Gentry (Alex Walter) yet. Not that their show is No. 1 on Netflix’s Global English Top 10 TV list. Not that the series has reached the Top 10 in 88 countries. And certainly not that their TikTok “For You” pages are forever altered. “I go on TikTok to escape, but there are no cat videos anymore,” Rodriguez tells Tudum, while flanked on a couch by her two co-stars (and on-screen love interests). “It’s just me and you guys.” 

Gentry says he also feels like he has “no concept of this” kind of success. Because when the trio returned to Calgary in Alberta, Canada, for a special screening on Dec. 6, it felt like they’d crossed a finish line for Season 1 of the show, which sees Rodriguez’s Jackie move in with the Walters after a family tragedy. “You said it felt like an ending,” Gentry reminds LaLonde about that evening, which involved celebrating over dinner, going back to their hotel rooms, and calling it a night. “We all were like, ‘OK, that’s it,’ ” Rodriguez remembers. “Then the show came out!” And everything changed.

Instead of an ending, the Walter Boys journey really is just beginning: The lovable teen drama will be back for Season 2. “I am beyond thrilled that My Life with the Walter Boys has been renewed for a second season,” series creator Melanie Halsall tells Tudum. “We have been overwhelmed by the love and support that the audience has given the show, and [we] can’t wait to dive back into the world of Silver Falls and the lives of these characters.” 

As for the actors, whose Instagram followings have utterly skyrocketed since the series’ release, coming back for Season 2 means “everything,” says Rodriguez. After filming Season 1, the cast found ways to still stay in touch, from a wrap party road trip to Vancouver to texting in their group chat, named “Pickle Rick Owens.” (It’s a long story.) But with Season 2 confirmed, LaLonde can’t wait to “hang out with our best friends” again. Marc Blucas, who plays Walter family patriarch George, told Gentry that making a series is the vacation. The work is the rest of the year. “That’s so real. You feel like you’re in a dream,” says Gentry. And no one is waking them up anytime soon.

The Calgary ranch where the shoot took place in the spring and summer of 2022 felt like a little bubble, according to the cast: a place where a romantic horse ride was on the next day’s shot list and Cinnaholic was just down the road. “The amount of times we’ve talked about Cinnaholic…” Rodriguez recalls of LaLonde and Gentry’s favorite dessert eatery when filming. Season 2 might mean a return to Canadian haunts like The Big Cheese Poutinerie. “It’s the best meal ever. [The] French fries, are you kidding me?” says Gentry. And the cheese curds, of course. “That’s the best part,” adds Rodriguez.

When My Life with the Walter Boys came out on Dec. 7, all three of the actors were flying back home after their full-circle night out in Calgary. LaLonde had stayed up very late that night (think: 8 a.m.) reflecting on the show, and spent Dec. 7 in a daze as his phone lit up with congratulatory messages. “I didn’t really know what was going on,” he says. “It was a weird, weird day, but an amazing day.” Once Rodriguez and Gentry arrived back to their homes, they were both roped into watching the show again with their friends, experiencing everyone’s live reactions. “They were screaming at the TV,” says Rodriguez. “It was very funny. They were very invested.”

Gentry compares getting swept up in this project to being swallowed by a whale, like in Pinocchio. “You can’t really see what you’re inside of. You don’t really know what’s happening. You’re just like, ‘Wow, it’s dark in here,’ but everybody on the outside of you is like, ‘Oh my God, that’s huge.’ ” Those reality checks have come in waves from, seemingly, everywhere — like the high school peers (“who I had one elective with”) texting Gentry out of the woodwork saying, “Yo, I watched all 10 episodes and I loved it.” After bringing author Ali Novak’s characters to life, the actors will forever be a part of the Walter world: “Once the show is out, it is never not out again,” says LaLonde.

There are a few scenes from Season 1 that the actors say they’ll never forget. Both LaLonde and Rodriguez were fascinated to learn the behind-the-scenes magic of making a rain scene come to life with rain towers, during their characters’ tension-filled fight at the end of Episode 7. “The scene is one that readers [of the original book] were waiting for,” says LaLonde. He and Rodriguez both got soaked to the bone, filming overnight in the cold. The crew used an industrial-size heater leading up to the actual rainfall, only for it to go out after the actors got fully drenched. “So dramatic!” Rodriguez jokes. The biggest challenge for her was that her contact lenses kept flying out during filming in the downpour. “I already can’t see with my contacts in — my eyesight’s terrible,” she says. 

Alex’s grand gesture — taking Jackie to see Silver Falls’ version of Manhattanhenge in Episode 5 — conjures its own special memories for Gentry. “In spite of how romantic it ended up [looking], it was windy and cold, and there was literally snot coming out of my nose,” he says. He was assured during shooting that no one else could tell, but as soon as they called “Cut,” Gentry recalls, he shouted, “ ‘Good God, get me off this mountain!’ ”  “It was so cute though,” LaLonde says. 

As for where Alex, Jackie, and Noah’s love triangle in the series will go next, now that Jackie has fled to New York? That’s “juicy with a capital J,” says Gentry. “I told Melanie, ‘If we don’t get a Season 2, you need to tell me what happens.’ ” Truth is, they’re all waiting on pins and needles for Halsall to clue them in. “The ending was crazy,” says Rodriguez. “I mean, Jackie straight up runs from all of her problems, which is honestly so relatable.” 

Even the original table read of Episode 10, when they all read the finale script for the first time, was emotional for the cast. “We had been through so much,” says LaLonde. “Not only were the characters finding their peace at different levels, but we were [also] about to say goodbye. So it was like this closing of a book that you never know if it’s going to be reopened. And that’s terrifying. It’s really scary to look around the room and think this is the last time you do this with [these] people. Yeah, I could cry even now.”

Seems like the world is ready for them to reopen that book again. And soon.

Stream Season 1 of My Life with the Walter Boys now, only on Netflix.