When it comes to the latest 2024 Netflix movie and TV release dates as of late, the Uglies movie has been dominating streaming numbers all weekend as tons of viewers tuned into the latest of the YA book adaptations. One element of the movie that surely had more people tuning in was Outer Banks’ Chase Stokes in one of the lead roles as the best friend of Joey King’s Tally. CinemaBlend spoke to the actor about his experience on the sci-fi flick and how it compared to his other big Netflix role.

This is where we get into SPOILERS. In Uglies, Stokes plays Peris, who is the first among the besties to turn 16 and therefore get the cosmetic surgery that everyone gets at that age in the dystopian society. Sadly for Tally, once Peris gets the surgery, he is a total meanie to her and starts working for the movie’s big bad (Laverne Cox’s Dr. Cable). At the end of Uglies, Peris ends up dying via falling off a giant cliff after Tally tries to stop him from beating David to death. When I spoke to Stokes about filming the death scene, he said this:

It’s so funny because in those moments, you’re on a wire and you’re on a back lot at a studio and it’s just the constant down and down and down and down. And you do it a bunch of different times. So you’re just sitting on a wire and you’re like, ‘This kind of hurts my crotch. Can I get down for a little bit?’

While his death scene is totally dramatic, it’s fun to imagine how shooting that scene really was like on that day. Plus, if you’re caught up on Outer Banks, you might have noticed that John B. almost dies a lot on the teen series. So much so that one of our staff members counted the amount of near-death experiences of John B. on Outer Banks so you don’t have to. With this in mind, the actor also said this about his Uglies death:

The dramatic irony of it on screen and going through so many near death experiences and Outer Banks, it was kind of nice to actually feel like, Oh, there is some finality to this’. But, maybe Paris lands on a giant pad and he’s not dead. We don’t know. Tease. Tease.

When comparing the two Netflix roles, Chase Stokes at first shared there was something nice about a character having some “finality” to him before teasing that perhaps the character didn’t die after all. What? I think this means Stokes likes the near-death trend for himself, and if an Uglies sequel did have Peris rising from the dead, he’d definitely have some sort of record, right?

Uglies is a passion project of Joey King, who spoke to CinemaBlend about trying to make the Scott Westerfield novel into a movie for a wild long time. During the press day, King and the other Uglies cast members spoke about the “timely” themes the movie gets into in relation to beauty standards. Check out Stokes’ transformation into a “Pretty.”

What a completely different look. When it came to Stokes, here’s what he told us about turning into a Pretty:

I dyed my hair platinum blonde, which was not the smartest idea on my part. And, I learned a lesson that it takes a couple sessions to get through that. I also learned I have like the worst tear ducts ever and I cry so easily. So getting the eyeliner on was a whole process. ’cause they’d be like, he’s crying it off again. Actively crying it off. So, but it looks cool in the movie, so I’m like, beauty is pain sometimes.