He was at self-checkout, wearing a mask, when two girls approached him.
Are you fromOuter Banks?
It threw Daviss, then 20, for a loop.
I was like, Why are these people coming up to me?
That was the first time I was ever recognized.
It had been a weird month for the actor, but not for the same reasons as everyone else.
Its young cast became overnight celebrities withskyrocketing social media followings.
I kind of miss doing that stuff.
It was more personable; we were just being ourselves, says Daviss, whos now 24.
It was a different era.
He jokes that hell have this kind of schedule all month, but hes used to it.
OBXhas continued as a widely-beloved success, withSeason 3 garnering almost 100 million views in its first two weeks.
He can still be a normal person in public, but he gets approached frequently and enthusiastically byfans.
Official fan events are a different story.
Daviss describes it to me this way: Think about when youre public speaking.
Now imagine thats your entire life.
As Daviss tells it, hes always been very inquisitive and a bit of a Renaissance man.
And if you want it to be your career, you should take it seriously.
Thats a thing not a lot of people can say.
Some sacrifice was involved.
I didnt go to prom, he says.
Despite his head start, life in LA brought a whole new set of challenges.
He was just 17 and sleeping on a family friends couch.
I was auditioning and getting close, but not booking anything.
I was broke, says Daviss.
Id get off of work at like 10 p.m. and kill the store.
I went to work anyway.
After about a year, though, he started considering other options.
I was like, Oh, my God, what did I do?
I screwed my family out of a lot of money, he says.
Maybe hed go back to Texas and study theater at UT.
Maybe hed try his hand in Atlantas acting scene.
I could have gone to college, he says.
Mentally, Im breaking down.
And then I get the audition forOuter Banks.
He had so much pressure on him, and I felt that same weight.
I had chosen this career path and I needed to succeed, says Daviss.
Being a public figure changes the way you just do anything, when everybodys looking at you.
It exacerbates a lot of who you are, and that can be kind of scary, he says.
Your privacy is kind of gone, to [the point] where everybody cares about who youre with.
Youre just like, Man, Im a person, just like youre a person.
But on the other side of that, it helped me do so much, he adds.
In 2022, heplayed a rich jock in the filmDo Revenge, starring Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke.
I dont think theres anything I cant do, he says, and I seriously believe that.
