GEORGE REXSTREW
as Edwin Payne

Early Years
I grew up in southwest London. I started acting at school. It started with drama classes, then school productions, then student productions at university, then drama school . . . and now here we are! 

Acting Inspiration
Oh, gosh. Well there are so many. Meryl Streep, obviously. Viola Davis, obviously. More recently, I was blown away by Enzo Vogrincic in Society of the Snow. And Eden Dambrine in Close.

Landing the Role in Dead Boy Detectives
The audition itself was pretty standard. I think I taped four scenes, had a producer’s Zoom the next day, an online chemistry read the next week, and was somehow offered the role by that weekend. However, the first audition came through directly to my personal email after I had applied to a Warner Bros mentoring scheme over a year before . . . clearly the fates had decided I was always meant to play dead, which is fair.

Who Is Edwin?
Pedantic, poised, and professional. I was very excited to play someone so complex — a character who on the outside seems to have everything together but is actually dealing with a lot going on beneath the surface. I think that’s every actor’s dream.

Dressing the Part
Wearing Edwin’s costume played a huge role in getting into character. Kelli Dunsmore is a total genius and she struck the perfect balance of making an Edwardian school uniform that also serves as the perfect ghost detective attire. Every single garment is thought through with so much detail, passion, and artistry. It was really a total privilege getting to work with Kelli and her team.

Favorite Case to Solve
I loved filming all the episodes for different reasons, but my favorite was probably Episode 5: “The Case of the Two Dead Dragons.” It was so much fun to be among some fresh faces, wander around an American high school, and sit in Edwin’s shoes as he experienced some big old epiphanies (as well as his first kiss . . . ).

Cast Camaraderie
I loved working with all my co-stars. I’m practically related to Jayden [Revri] and Kassius [Nelson] at this point. Yuyu [Kitamura] is a dream. Jenn [Lyon] is mother hen. Bri[ana Cuoco] is the cool older sister. Josh[ua Colley] is the cheeky cousin. Ruth [Connell] is the godmother who gives you a card and £20 for your birthday. It really is one big happy dysfunctional family. I’m grateful for all of them, on and off camera.

JAYDEN REVRI
as Charles Rowland

Early Years
I grew up in London. I didn’t know I wanted to be an actor for quite a while. It got to Year 6, our last year in primary school, and I did an end-of-year production, which was The Lion King. I ended up auditioning for the role of Simba and got the part. From the first performance, I realized that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was really fortunate that my head teacher watched us rehearse and perform, and without my knowledge he actually sent somebody to come in and watch me, and I got into her agency. 

Acting Inspiration
I loved High School Musical growing up. I was always that kid to stand on the table and sing “Happy Birthday” really loudly. So I used to want to be Troy Bolton. But then fortunately enough for me, when I was 16, I got the opportunity to be in a musical Disney series and got to break out into song and dance during a conversation. I always said I wanted to play a superhero as well. So I guess I’m manifesting my way through life, really!

Landing the Role in Dead Boy Detectives
I was away filming another Netflix series at the time called Fate: The Winx Saga. Everyone else [on set] started getting auditions through for this series and I was like, Oh, okay, this is cool. And then they were like, “Jayden, do you want to come help us read in? You’ve got to read this character Charles.” And I remember reading it offscreen and I was like, “This character, I don’t know much about this show or what it is, but all I know is this character speaks to me in utter volumes.” I went to dial my agent’s number in my phone to basically say, I want to get an audition for this. And just before I was about to click on his name, he started calling me. I answered the phone and I was like, “There’s this series . . . ” And he cut me off, “Oh, Dead Boy Detectives. I’ve actually got you an audition for Charles.” I think about two weeks later I was cast. 

Who is Charles?
I just think he’s so cheeky. He can talk his way out of any situation. And it’s a way that people have described me my whole life, being cheeky and, if I got myself into a bit of a pickle, I could just talk and wiggle my way out of it. I could tell straight away from the material that this just sounds like me. There’s obviously been a lot of renditions of Dead Boy Detectives, and he’s appeared in the comics, in Doom Patrol. I was really fortunate that Steve and Beth kind of gave me the leeway to bring a lot of myself to the character. 

Dressing the Part
These heads of departments, and Monique and Kelli, [they’re] unbelievable. They were so collaborative. We went through different hairstyles and different things we could do with the makeup. We added a bit of eyeliner for [Charles] just to make it feel more 80s. And then Kelli, I mean, it was like she did her research on me. She added badges to the jacket which kind of represented me as Jayden, before I even got there. It wasn’t until I got the haircut, put the makeup on, put the costume on, and I was like, Okay, this is Charles.

Favorite Case to Solve
I think Episode 3 with the loop. Obviously, it’s where the series definitely takes a turn, but for me as Charles, it’s kind of the first time you really get to see him knock down that outer shell that he puts on for everybody. I really got to dive deep into his emotions and things that he’s been through. It was a really big turning point for him and for me in the series. And it is from there that he starts to really figure himself out. A lot of people say that that’s their favorite episode, and I can really see why. It was an absolutely wild 10 days of filming.

Cast Camaraderie
The vibe was just incredible. Me and George, we really wanted to set the tone for the series and make sure that everyone’s having fun and it’s an environment where we could all talk about how we’re feeling. We were just such a big support blanket for each other. If there was ever a time that somebody needed space, or they wanted to prep themselves for a certain scene they were going to film, we all respected that and we were each other’s cheerleaders the whole entire time. And it’s still the same to this day now. I think it really shows when you watch the series that we all knew what we were making and we wanted to make something that we would want to watch, which we’ve all done. I cannot shout out my castmates enough. Forever grateful.

KASSIUS NELSON
as Crystal Palace

Early Years
I grew up in North London. I started acting at around 14 in a theater company, and did acting alongside school. Gradually I got into it professionally from there. [One of my first roles] was playing a schoolgirl who’d fallen out with her friend or something, and it was drama. I think that was the first time I had to swear, and I remember my nan came to see it and in the performance, I’m saying the f-word and you just hear my nan tutting, and I was like, “Yeah, there she is.” That’s the first role I remember.

Acting Inspiration
I watched a lot of animation. I used to watch the Addams Family, the black-and-white one, because I didn’t have Disney Channel or anything. Monk, Murder She Wrote, I was watching those things, so maybe I was actually destined to play a detective, now that I’m thinking about it. I watched a lot of cartoons and animations. I just liked the idea that I could be engrossed in another world. And I always wanted to know what happened next, or when the film finished, I would be like, “Okay, but then what? What happens after that?” And now I get to be part of that question or that answer, and be more involved in these characters and the world that they live in, which is what I was obsessed with watching DVDs or videos growing up.

Landing the Role in Dead Boy Detectives
It was quite similar to most auditions. You have your self tapes and then you do a chemistry read, but we did it during the pandemic, so all the chemistry reads happened over Zoom. I have really bad Wi-Fi, so that was also interesting. I remember it being very quick though. I think I started auditioning and got the role within the space of about two and a half, three weeks!

Who is Crystal?
It wasn’t really until we started filming that I got more of an understanding of who she is and the things that she’s battling with or the challenges that she’s facing. But at the start, I really didn’t know her, which kind of helped, because she didn’t know herself, so that helped to influence that side of playing her. She’s very sarcastic and quite blunt, which I think is a British humor thing, which would make sense because Steve had said that her character had moved to the U.K. at around 10 or 11, so she’d spent a long time in the U.K. that she’d pick up some of that humor. I don’t know if she always means it as humor. I think sometimes she means it to be a bit rude, but I quite like that. 

Dressing the Part
We have a fantastic costume designer, Kelli Dunsmore. I always say that she literally wove the story into the fabric of the clothes, because there are things that she foreshadowed in the clothing that happened episodes later. Or, if characters start to get in some sort of relationship with each other, that will be reflected in the clothes that they wear or the colors that they have. Or, if they’re feeling any type of emotion, the same way we dress differently, the characters are dressed differently, which I thought was really cool. Crystal wears these massive platform boots that must be about four or five inches. They’re huge, very heavy, but it’s funny because they change the way that you walk. So, I felt like Crystal had a walk that was very different to me, out of necessity to walk in these boots. But it’s effective in feeling like a different person, or having a more of a felt sense for Crystal because it’s quite weighted. She’s not very light, which makes sense with the things that she’s going through and the experiences that she’s having. Practically, it helped, because Jayden and George are like six-foot-something. So, if I film a scene and I’m at the bottom of the lens and they’re up there, that helped. I’ve got a good couple inches on my feet.

Favorite Case to Solve
My favorite episode to watch is Episode 7, but my favorite case to solve was Episode 5, where they were all in the school and they’ve got Twitchy Richy. It was just really fun and Amanda, the director, was just amazing, and it felt really different to the cases that we had before. I liked being in a school, for some reason. I don’t know why. It felt like we were doing something we shouldn’t do by being in a school. There was something that just felt really interesting about it.

Cast Camaraderie
We’ve been in each other’s lives for a couple of years now, working on the show, so it’s a relationship that’s evolved really beautifully over time and we have a great way of working and also respecting each other’s space. But the fact that we do get on really well offscreen, it means we can really push the boundaries of the scene or the characters during a scene and really play well off each other and lean into each other the moments that we need it. So, it’s a really nice environment to have, a really trusting environment to have when you’re filming a show as weird as this one. 

YUYU KITAMURA
as Niko

Early Years
I grew up in Hong Kong, and I have always found that that city is a great representation of who I am. It’s bustling, it’s got energy, and it has been so formative for me. I got into acting when I was in primary school and we would do school plays and I always found that it brought me so much joy. Also, my parents had to come see me and I think there’s something in being a middle child that really pushed me towards acting. 

Acting Inspiration
Sandra Oh is a woman that I will forever be indebted to because who she was on Grey’s Anatomy was so formative for me. The most interesting thing about her character was not that she was Asian, but that she was such a fully fleshed person with flaws and amazing qualities. And her work ever since I think has been iconic, so she’s a woman that I deeply look up to.

Landing the Role in Dead Boy Detectives
I auditioned from Hong Kong and my dad was my reader because all of my acting friends were in New York. My dad was able to carve out time and be an amazing reader. And in that audition side, it’s the scene where Niko gets to see the “Dead Boys” for the first time, and there’s a line in there that was something along the lines of me talking to Edwin and asking, “Do you two make out with each other?” And my dad stopped the tape and he was like, “What are you reading for?” And I was like, “Don’t give me notes, it’s fine!” And so that was the audition process! I think within a month I found out I got the part and it’s been an absolute dream ever since.

Who is Niko?
I immediately connected with Niko because I think her soul and her essence really reminded me of my younger sister. There is this purity in her, and my younger sister has this quality where she’s always seeing the best in people. When I started channeling that, I think I found at the core who Niko was. And she really does represent love in the show and also in the group, but not just romantic love. I think her journey is also platonic love and how important that factors into a world that can be really dark and heavy. She brings this optimism that reminds people about humanity and about emotional intelligence.

Dressing the Part
Everything exteriorly is not me, I would say. It really transformed and helped me get into the character of Niko. That blonde wig . . . Stacey Butterworth, she makes amazing wigs. And Kelli Dunsmore, who is our costume designer, I think on paper Niko can seem like a certain type of character, but even in the choice of every costume we did, every color that she wears, every meticulous little piece about everything from her nails to her room, it’s so well curated and thought out. Through her journey, we also find that she’s a woman that wears what she feels. On the surface, she might seem like the most joyful, young, optimistic girl, but it’s the inner confidence and bravery where we find that she’s layered, and she is very much a young woman coming of age. 

Favorite Case to Solve
I say Episode 4 is my favorite because it’s the first time that Niko is part of the detective agency and we really see the early sprinkles of where this agency could go. And I think we find that her skill set and what she can bring to the agency really does change how she solves cases when she’s a part of them.

Cast Camaraderie
They’re an absolute joy to work with, apart from just being incredibly talented people. It was a gift of an experience to have this as my first big show. I couldn’t have asked for a better cast or crew. We have too much fun together where sometimes work does take time because all we do is talk nonsense. And so getting to work with also amazing actors like Jenn Lyon, Michael Beach, Tamlyn Tomita. I feel like every day I was stealing and learning from our cast.