Chase Stokes Lived in His Car Before Landing Role on 'Outer Banks' : 'I Never Got Caught'

Before Outer Banks, Chase Stokes was just trying to make ends meet.

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live Thursday, the 28-year-old actor said he faced a slew of struggles before landing the role of John B in the hit Netflix series, including living in his car for two months.

"There was a strategy to it," Stokes told guest host Anthony Anderson of operating out of the TCL Chinese Theatre parking lot. "You don't want to park in a corner. Then all of a sudden the parking attendant is like 'That dude is for sure sleeping in here.' So every day I would try to find a different parking spot and it worked out. It worked out. I never got caught."

Stokes landed his Outer Banks role a short time later, but not before trying out a few side gigs for size.

Before his big break, a friend helped Stokes get a job serving, and he even worked an Oscar party for Elton John, but was fired 15 minutes into the event for watching the band. Then, Stokes landed a bartending gig that lasted less than a year. The owner promoted him to social media manager after he lied about his photography skills, but he was later fired.

With an eviction notice on his apartment door, Stokes said he got desperate for a role. His agent sent him a breakdown of the role for John B, but the actor initially turned it down.

"I was like, 'That's The Goonies. That's for sure The Goonies. I don't want to destroy that.' So I passed on it. And I was like, 'Nope. Not doing that.'"

As be become more pressed for work, the actor read for the role of Topper, his arch-nemesis on the show, but the audition didn't exactly go as planned.

"I was like, 'I'm so broke that I'm willing to make this effort for the d------- of the show.' And so I did and I bombed the audition," Stokes told Anderson, later noting he felt he had "completely killed" his career"

Two weeks later, an East Coast casting director reached out to Stokes' agent inquiring about the part of John B, which he'd originally passed on. That's when the actor realized the role wasn't for The Goonies, but for Outer Banks.

"She's like, 'I'm going to send you the first script. Let me know your thoughts.' So I read it, and I immediately was sitting in my borderline-evicted apartment and I was like, 'I made a giant mistake. It's not The Goonies. It's literally not The Goonies.' And I had fully convinced myself for a month-and-a-half at this point that it's The Goonies," Stokes said.

The actor eventually read for the role and was convinced he'd lost it after not hearing back from casting. On Easter Sunday, he got the call of a lifetime from his agent.

"He said, 'You're getting on a plane in two hours. You're going to Charleston,'" Stokes told Anderson, noting he initially feared he was being fired again.

Stokes landed the role on the teen drama two days later. He received the news while sitting beside another actor competing for the same part.

"And that's how I started the journey. I had two pairs of underwear, three t-shirts and a pair of shorts," he said.

Season 2 of Outer Banks premieres July 30 on Netflix.