Ashby Gentry talks Alex’s glow-up in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’ S2

Ashby Gentry’s character, Alex Walter, has a major glow-up in My Life with the Walter Boys season 2, and it was just as stunning for him as it was for viewers.

Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) couldn’t help but cling to Alex after she returned to Silver Falls, following a summer spent in New York City.

Ashby told PEOPLE that Alex’s transformation was a double-edged sword.

“Without sounding cheesy or pretentious, it did feel like a physical transformation as an actor,” Gentry shared, adding that he put in a lot of work for the glow-up. “There was a lot of stuff I did.”

Still, when he first learned that Alex would be a “hotter” version of himself in the new season, Ashby admitted he had mixed feelings.

“It is definitely difficult to not interpret it as a backhanded compliment,” he said 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.’”

Melanie Halsall, the series’ showrunner, was the one who broke the news of the transformation to him.

“My showrunner called me and was like, ‘You’re going to have a glow-up,’” he remembered. “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.’”

Ironically, Ashby’s so-called glow-up came from simply being more disciplined with his regular lifestyle — the only real difference was that he hadn’t been as consistent with exercise during season 1.

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