When Noah LaLonde was gearing up for the release of “My Life With the Walter Boys” season one, the stakes felt relatively low. 

“No matter what happened, the experience had been one that I would cherish forever,” LaLonde says, over a Zoom call. “I met people and worked with people and learned about the craft in ways that I wouldn’t trade for anything. So technically if they canceled the show before it came out, it would be a net positive experience, truly.”

The show was far from canceled: the series, which premiered on Netflix in December 2023, became an instant sensation, and with it LaLonde and his co-leads Nikki Rodriguez and Ashby Gentry stars. The second season of the show has finally arrived on Netflix, with the third already confirmed.

“There’s an expectation,” LaLonde says of the new second season. “Season one kind of felt like people stumbled into it rather than were anticipating it. And now because my family and friends are so invested, I’ve gotten into the routine of seeing quite a bit of stuff online or hearing stories about people coming up to them and saying stuff. So there certainly feels like there’s an expectation, which makes it even more exciting.”

The show, based on the book by Ali Novak, follows a teenager named Jackie, who becomes an orphan after a tragedy and moves from New York City to rural Colorado to live with her mom’s best friend — and her eight children. As YA books to series adaptations tend to go these days, a love triangle between two of the brothers soon emerges.

LaLonde plays Cole, the oldest of the two brothers vying for Jackie’s attention, who was a high school football star before an injury sidelined him. Season two sees him turning to coaching and exploring what his new future might look like. 

LaLonde, who is 27, saw a lot of himself in Cole when he first got the audition in his inbox. A Michigan native, he had grown up playing hockey.

“I was immediately struck by the similarities with what Cole was going through and what I had experienced in my own life, that identity shift being a hockey player and having that be such a defining part of my life for so long, only to have that change and not know how to move forward,” LaLonde says. “That foundation felt really familiar and was intriguing to me.”

LaLonde spent the second half of his senior year of high school playing hockey in Youngstown, Ohio, watching all his friends go off to college. 

“That life that I had led for a very long time was pretty one track minded. When you’re an athlete, you have to stay within the path or else you’re not going to have success,” he says. “As I got older, I started to reach this crossroads where I started to feel new versions of this adult I was becoming. There was nowhere that I really felt I could express myself that way other than watching movies and television.”

Growing up he participated in school plays and the school choir, and he started feeling a pull back to that passion.

“It’s interesting to talk about because it was so all encompassing, but it was mostly just I was changing as a person. And that version of myself no longer fit in the athletic environment in the same way,” LaLonde says. “I was really lost for a minute, but I got into community college and it was there that I enjoyed learning.”

He later transferred to Grand Valley State University, where he debated a career as a lawyer, but eventually decided to drop out and pursue acting. 

“What I learned in stopping playing hockey at that stage of my life was that I’m the only one who has to live with every decision. I can handle anything as long as I can understand and take responsibility for the consequences,” he says. “And so my decision was I was going to pursue this artistic endeavor because it felt like it was right for me deep down, and I haven’t regretted it since.”

He moved to Los Angeles in the fall of 2021 and booked “Walter Boys” in March 2022, and the rest is history. 

“It’s been such a ride,” he says. “Whatever lies ahead, I’ve trusted my path fully so far, and I’ll continue to do that.”