The Creators of N.C

The Lost Treasure of Home

Jon as Pat e an d his r un away hit O uter Bank s

By Wile y CaSh While there is plenty

of myster y in the breakout Netflix smash hit Outer Banks — ever ything from a father lost at sea to a legendar y treasure — the myster y that director and co-creator Jonas Pate seems most intent on exploring is the age-old myster y of what divides people along class lines. It worked for Shakespeare with his Montagues and Capulets, and 370 or so years later it worked again for Bernstein’s and Sondheim’s Jets and Sharks. Pate’s rival groups are similarly aged, sun-kissed teenagers living and partying along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where a group of working class kids known as the “Pogues” continually find themselves marginalized and dismissed by the “Kooks,” who are the children of wealthy residents and seasonal tourists. Fists and hearts certainly fly, but despite the show’s use of cliffhangers and action-packed sequences, at its core Outer Banks investigates the emotional and experiential threads that pull some of us together across class lines while invisible barriers push others of us apart.

According to Pate, the divide bet ween the haves and the have nots is “the oldest stor y in the world. It cuts across ever ything,” which he believes explains the show’s broad appeal.

Broad indeed. In the late spring of 2020, just as the people of the world were settling into the pandemic and the realization that they did not want to see or hear another word about Tiger King and Joe Exotic, Outer Banks debuted in mid-April and quick ly became one of Netflix’s

most watched shows of the year. T he following summer, the show’s second season hit No. 1 on the Nielsen repor t. T he success seemed immediate, and the show’s slick production qualit y made it all appear as easy and rela xed as a day on the water, but Jonas Pate and his t win brother, Josh, with whom he created Outer Banks along with Shannon Burke, had spent their whole lives preparing for this moment.

T he Pate brothers grew up in R aeford, Nor th Carolina, where their father ser ved as a judge and their grandfather owned a local pharmacy. “It was amazing,” Jonas says. “It was like Mayberr y. I’d ride my bike to the pharmacy and get a Cherr y Coke and a slaw dog, and then I’d visit my dad at the cour thouse. My stepmom was head of parks and recreation, so I’d go over there and help ref T-ball games.”

We are sitting on the second-stor y porch of the home he shares with his wife, Jennifer, and their t wo teenage children in Wilmington, just across the water f rom Wrightsville Beach. T he Januar y morning is unseasonably warm and sunny, and Jonas is dressed as if he just stepped of f the set of Outer Banks, not as its director but as one of its stars. (How handsome is Jonas Pate? A few days later, our 5 -year-old daughter will walk past Mallor y’s computer while she is editing photos of Jonas. She will stop in her tracks and ask, “W ho is that?”)

Jonas’ surfer appeal is not surprising considering that while he primarily grew up in R aeford and attended high school there, he spent his summers with his mother along the barrier islands near Charleston. “Outer Banks is an amalgam of dif ferent high school environments and things that we went through,” he says. “It helped create the mythical environment of Outer Banks where we k ind of knew what it was like to live feral in a small town with haves and have-nots. K iawah and James Island were like that. It was poor k ids and rich k ids, and they would get into fights. And R aeford is still ver y r ural.”

Rural, yes, but Jonas and Josh still found plent y to keep them busy. If they were not exploring the marshes and water ways of f the coast of Charleston, then they were shooting homemade movies back in R aeford, where they made films of Robin Hood and Hercules and edited them by using two V HS machines. He laughs at the memor y of it. “The cuts were terrible and f uzzy,” he says, “and all the special ef fects and sound were awf ul.” But he admits that something felt and still feels magical about it. He had always loved film, especially those by Steven Spielberg and Frank Capra, saying that he has “always been drawn to filmmakers who are a little sweeter and have a little more heart.”

Af ter college, the brothers found that they still had the desire to make films, but they did not know how to break into the industr y. “We didn’t know anyone in the film business,” he says. “We didn’t know anything.”

T he brothers moved to New York and worked to immerse themselves in the cit y’s film culture. W hile interning at the Angelika Film Center, Josh met Peter Glatzer, who was a f undraiser for the Independent Feature Project. T hey talked about screenwriting, and the Pate brothers soon had a script that Glatzer was interested in producing. T heir first film, The Grave, was shot in eastern Nor th Carolina, and while it did not receive a theatrical release and went straight to video af ter premiering on HBO, the Pate brothers had their collective foot in the door. In 1997, they made another Nor th Carolina-shot film with Glatzer, The Deceiver, that starred Tim Roth and Renée Zellweger, and it found a larger audience af ter debuting at the Venice Film Festival and being distributed by MGM. T he brothers headed for L os Angeles.

O nc e t here, Jona s found h imself “t a k ing jobs just to pay t he bi l ls” a nd “get t ing f ur t her a nd f ur t her away f rom what I ac t ua l ly

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wa nte d to do.” O ne br ig ht sp ot of h is t ime in L A wa s me et ing h is w ife, Jenn ifer, who a lso worke d in t he indust r y a s a c a st ing agent. Not long a f ter t hey met , Jenn ifer st ar te d her ow n agenc y, a nd Jona s went to her for a ssist a nc e in c a st ing h is first telev ision show, Go o d vs. Ev il, in 1999. From t here he went on to d ire c t a nd pro duc e a numb er of telev ision shows, includ ing t he N BC shows Decept ion a nd Pr im e Su spect a nd A BC ’s Bl o o d an d O il. In 20 05, t he Pate brot hers par t nere d aga in a nd ret ur ne d to Nor t h Carol ina, where t hey fi lme d a single se a son of t he telev ision show Sur fa ce, wh ich t hey c o - cre ate d. A f ter hav ing k ids, Jona s a nd Jenn ifer de cide d to move back to Nor t h Carol ina in t ime for t heir son a nd daug hter to at tend h ig h scho ol. Jona s sudden ly found h imself on t he ot her side of t he c ount r y f rom t he indust r y he had devote d h is l ife to for t he pa st 20 ye ars.

But t hen somet h ing mag ic a l happ ene d. Jona s understo o d t wo t h ings: First , he ne e de d to cre ate somet h ing t hat c ou ld b e shot on t he c oa st so he c ou ld st ay close to home. S e c ond, he wou ld dr aw f rom h is ow n ex p er ienc es to ma ke it re a l. “W hen I pu l le d f rom my ow n l ife inste ad of t he mov ies I’d se en, it a l l c a me toget her,” he says. “You get to t he un iversa l by b eing sup er sp e cific .”

One big cha llenge that Jonas and his team encountered was casting the show’s young stars. “We auditioned maybe 50 0 or 60 0 k ids, and we rea lly had to tr y to find k ids who’d been outside and lived in the outdoors.” Not sur pr isingly, g iven the Pate brothers’ persona l ties to the show’s geog raphy, nearly ever y star they cast was f rom the South, except for one who hailed f rom A lask a. “Grow ing up outside, being around boats,” Jonas says, “it’s hard to fake that st uf f, and it’s hard to make it look rea l if it’s not.”

I turn of f the recorder and Mallor y packs up her photography gear, and we say our goodbyes to Jonas. He is leaving soon for another production set. We share a number of mutual f riends in Wilmington with him and Jennifer, and we talk about getting together for dinner once he returns.

Mallor y and I are alone in the driveway when I realize that I have locked the keys in our car. To say that I was embarrassed — and, let’s be honest, panicked — would be an understatement. Mallor y pulled out her phone and began searching for a locksmith. I have a flip phone, so I just stood there, weighing the t wo most logical options: break ing the window with one of Jonas’ landscaping rocks or just leaving the car and walk ing home, denying it was ever ours.

I cannot help think ing that if I were John B., the star of Outer Banks and leader of the Pog ues, played by Chase Stokes, I would sneak into a neighbor’s garage and hot wire their car, drive home, procure a backup set of keys, and return for Mallor y while passing under the investigating deput y’s nose. Or, if I were Topper, the leader of the Kooks, played by Austin Nor th, I would bang on Jonas’ door and use his phone to call my father’s car ser vice. But I am neither of these characters. I’m just me, so I apologize again to Mallor y, and we wait for the locksmith together. OH Wil e y Ca sh is th e Alumni Auth or-in -Re si d en ce at th e Universit y of Nor th Carolin a A sh ev ill e. His n ew n o vel, W hen Ghost s C ome Home, is avail abl e wh erever bo ok s are sol d.