Jonathan Daviss Recalls Being Chased By Real Rats In ‘Outer Banks’ Scene With Madelyn Cline: “Maddie Was Not Feeling That”

Outer Banks Season 4 finds its rag-tag team of Pogues doing more of the unthinkable in their latest quest for treasure. Perhaps one of the most skin-crawling scenes is one where Pope Heyward ( Jonathan “JD” Daviss ) and Sarah Cameron ( Madelyn Cline ) shimmy their way through a tight, rat-filled tunnel in hopes of uncovering a treasure connected to a mysterious amulet that once belonged to the famed pirate, Blackbeard. Much of their hilarious banter, Daviss tells DECIDER, was “improv” as Cline was not thrilled with the rats crawling between them.

In Part 1, Episode 5 — titled “Albatross” — Sarah complains her way through a series of underground tunnels, which lead them to a catacomb beneath a Charleston church that holds the next clue in their hunt for the Blue Crown — an ancient artifact that’s said to grant its wearer invincibility.

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“I can’t believe I’m doing this again,” Sarah whines in the episode. “You guys know I don’t like caves. And I don’t like tunnels. This is bullshit.”

Looking back on filming the scene, Daviss said, “Some of that was improv because we were actually crawling through this tunnel and there were actually rats crawling between us, and Maddie was not feeling that. And so it went from like, ‘Here are the lines,’ to like, ‘I’m just going to tell the director how I feel right now because this is terrible. It’s bullcrap.’ So yeah, a lot of that’s improv.”

We also caught up with Cline, who admitted that she still has “not adapted” to the tight spaces her character often finds herself in.

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“[The writers] know this. And they still put me in tight spaces,” she said, before playfully adding, “Physically and emotionally, it’s very stressful.”

Despite the circumstances, Daviss and Cline — who are close pals IRL — were excited to share a scene together.

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“Maddie and I are great friends and we’ve never actually had a scene of just us two doing anything and we hang out all the time,” Daviss said. “So when we read that we were going to be going into the ‘rat-acombs’ as we call it, for obvious reasons, we were like, okay, this will be a cool little Pope and Sarah moment. We’ll actually get to hang out and do our chemistry or whatever.”

Rodents and claustrophobia aside, filming the scene felt like an Indiana Jones movie, according to Daviss.

“We’re crawling through the tunnel, we’re going through the catacombs, we’re hiding on the walls,” he said. “That set that they built was incredible and insane. It took about three days to get through that entire sequence. It was a lot.”

Daviss ultimately praised Cline for being a “trouper” at the end of the day, noting that they “leaned on each other for support” while filming the action-packed scene.

Outer Banks Season 4, Part 1 is currently streaming on Netflix. Part 2 will hit the streamer on Nov. 7.

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