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Growing up on the ice in Michigan, LaLonde says it initially felt like hockey “was kind of my definitive path.” That was until he started to question things and his “interests started to shift more and more,” eventually coming to the realization that “the only place that I really found I could understand myself a little bit more was watching movies and watching TV shows and getting invested into these journeys that other people were on.”
That’s when he finally decided to answer “this thing that’s been calling my name for a long time,” which was acting. He eventually landed his starring role on Netflix‘s teen drama My Life With the Walter Boys in 2023, playing the charismatic but complex heartthrob Cole Walter.
It’s safe to say LaLonde didn’t anticipate going from hockey player to onscreen heartthrob, playfully stating to THR, “I can’t say I actively wake up, put on my heartthrob hat and brush my heartthrob teeth. I don’t do that.”
But he’s happy to embrace the label if it means he gets to continue working on projects that connect “with a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds and different perspectives,” such as Walter Boys, which just released its third season and has a fourth season on the way.
Below, LaLonde opens up about what he’s learned from playing Cole for three seasons, the on-screen romance with Nikki Rodriguez’s Jackie, whether he would be open to starring in a hockey-centered show, those Leonardo DiCaprio comparisons and more.
As a former hockey player, what’s your reaction to seeing the sport enter the pop culture zeitgeist with recent shows like Heated Rivalry and Off Campus?
The NHL or the hockey gods, they must have struck a deal. It’s just funny to me that this would happen at this time in my life when I just got people to stop asking me about hockey (Laughs). But I think it’s great. … I watched Heated Rivalry. I loved that show. And the thing that I loved most about it is that it brought a different perspective that not a lot of people expected from a show about hockey. Not that one perspective tells all, but my experience playing hockey was a little bit more rigid in that the reason I stopped playing is because it was the same thing all the time and there wasn’t a lot of nuance for feeling something that I wanted to feel or stepping out of the path and kind of being yourself. So every new story told in that environment is a win in a way that it expands the perspective that people pair with the sport.
Netflix also has some hockey shows in the works, so would you be open to combining your two loves and taking part in that show if the opportunity presented itself?
I would love to. I mean, I can cut a month out of the prep or however long they tell people to learn how to play or how much time they allot them. Look, fresh news stories in those environments are fun and it certainly would be a cool thing to mend. And a lot of people back home who liked watching me play hockey — my parents would freak out. They’re like, “We can do both at the same time.”
Pivoting back to the present, you’ve been with your character Cole for three seasons now on Walter Boys, which is an achievement in this ever-changing TV era. What have you learned from playing him?
For one — you speak about this age of television — it’s such an honor to be able to work with one character for this amount of time. And for me, it being my first long-term role, it’s been the thing that I’ll always equate to so much of what it is to be an actor in this industry. And the nerves from the very beginning led to this very disciplined approach to trying to fully take over the character and take ownership over his life. And for an actor who once had a sport be the definitive identity piece, and then to lose that, and then to forge your new path through the things that are in front of you and being in touch with what’s inside you, I think you’re starting to hear a little bit of a similar thing to Cole. So it’s been therapeutic in a way to explore that thing through the lens of Cole Walter.
In this new season, Cole and Jackie finally get together, even if it’s just for a short period before they hit more hurdles. What was it like getting to explore that onscreen romance deeper this season?
It was a really wonderful challenge as an actor because it felt like it made so much sense for the characters after everything that’s happened in the first two seasons. It kind of feels like this slow burn of, wow, this person is so interesting to a little bit of cat-and-mouse to — at least for Cole, thinking of Jackie — this is the exact person that I need to inspire me and help motivate me to navigate this stage of my life. And she’s doing it with such an intensely traumatic experience in losing her family. So I think the way in which the relationship builds and the attraction builds, it just felt really right to read those scripts. And I think we just wanted to do it justice in that they really cared about each other.
Your character also started exploring car racing this season, which was new to the show. What was that experience like?
It was the other side of Cole that we have seen very much in repair these first two seasons, where he’s a deeply competitive guy who’s driven by that progression through competition. And like myself, I was searching for something to fill that void. … So this is the season where Cole’s really building out a potential new life. And it was really fun to explore that. The drag-racing scene was very new to me, but I went with a couple of the gentlemen who worked on and owned one of the cars in the show. I drove up a couple of hours on the weekend and saw them race for real. I read about all these actors doing these things that they had no clue about, so to actually get to do that was really cool. Of course I didn’t get to drive really fast, but just being in those cars — they’re incredibly well-built and interesting to explore.
With Walter Boys being your breakout role, and you playing a teen heartthrob that’s involved in a classic love triangle, do you ever worry about getting typecast in that kind of character?
It’s not something that I actively think about because I try to stay in the moment and present and lead with a lot of gratitude because, like you said at the beginning, to be embarking on a fourth season here is not the norm with TV anymore. So I’m super grateful to be working and getting to explore characters. So that’s my main focus right now.
There’s a lot of people who have forged this path before me and everybody has a different story, so I’m not too necessarily worried about getting typecast. I’m more so excited to tell the next chapter of my story rather than the worry of what it could be. I have this trust of what’s meant for me or what’s supposed to be next for me will be. I was asked that a couple of weeks ago: How does that feel [to be a heartthrob]? And I’m like, well, I can’t say I actively wake up, put on my heartthrob hat and brush my heartthrob teeth. I don’t do that (Laughs).
It seems fans have also compared you to a young Leonardo DiCaprio on social media, so what do you make of that?
He’s a legend. He’s one of the first actors that I was really in awe of. Someone told me that I looked a little bit like him when I was a kid. There was a photo of him with his mother, and it looked pretty similar to me and my aunt. Again, young teen age. And I just went through his whole filmography and watched every single movie that he did. And so he’s a great inspiration to me and one of the finest actors of our time. And the way in which people call him a heartthrob coming out of the gate, he also did totally non-heartthrob stuff before he became the international heartthrob of the world. But the way in which he’s charted a path through his career — again, everyone has a different path — it’s hard to find a better one than that.
When you’re not filming and working, what does your perfect day off look like?
Oh man, the perfect day off is a lot of walking. I love to explore wherever I’m at via my feet. And I could walk forever around a city and start with a coffee and then meet up with a friend for a lunch and then walk with them them to a beach where we can catch the sunset and a dinner and meet up with two other friends. … I just love to be present in places with other people. And if you extend that, it sometimes forms into watching a movie and that’s what I love to do and I love to be a part of.
