With season 2 of My Life With the Walter Boys finally here, Ashby Gentry once again steps into one of TV's trickiest roles: the other guy in a love triangle. While his character, Alex, has his fair share of swoonworthy moments, being the one fans don't ship can come with its own kind of heartbreak - and backlash. "I think my body and mind are preparing for people to start talking about me again," Gentry, 26, exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the Thursday, August 28, season 2 premiere. "I don't try to hide from that, because I think that's fruitless. I don't go off social media, I don't want to limit my own life because people are saying stuff." He continued, "Some actors do, and if that works for them, that's great. And it truly doesn't always make me feel bad, but sometimes it does. I would be inhuman if people were saying these things and I didn't feel like it didn't hurt me to some degree." Warning: Spoilers below for season 2 of My Life With the Walter Boys. Gentry has starred on My Life With the Walter Boys since its 2023 premiere, stepping into the role of the quiet, steady Alex Walter opposite Noah LaLonde's brooding bad boy, Cole. Together, the two form the beating heart of the show's central love triangle with Nikki Rodrigeuz's Jackie, who comes to live with the family after her parents and sister die in a car crash. Once in Colorado, she finds herself torn between the reliable good guy and the electrifying rebel. It's a setup that's become a staple of the teen drama genre, but comes with the reality that every glance, kiss and cliffhanger gets dissected - and debated - by a passionate fanbase. Team Cole or Alex? My Life With the Walter Boys' Love Triangle Timeline That can be tricky when an actor plays the less popular romantic interest. While Alex dates Jackie in both season 1 and 2 of the Netflix hit, she ultimately chooses his brother Cole - twice. Their connection is undeniably a fan favorite, which means Alex becomes a target for simply being in the way. "Our fanbase is so young. It's like, these are kids who haven't grown up. They don't know what they're saying," Gentry said. "But when the [season 2] trailer came out, I got really, really, really sad. I was like, 'I'm gonna have to go through this all over again.' ... You know in [The Summer I Turned Pretty] when Conrad is like, 'My chest hurts, physically hurts?' Yeah, I felt like that when our trailer came out. I was like, 'Man, this is making me really sad.'" Speaking of TSITP, Gentry found himself empathizing with star Gavin Casalegno, who plays Jeremiah, the less-popular side of another one-girl-and-two-brother love triangle to Chris Briney's more popular Conrad. "We always get compared to [The Summer I Turned Pretty], so I feel like it's appropriate to talk about them. But I was talking to some people the other day, and I was like, 'Man, I feel for Gavin [Casalegno], a little bit,'" Gentry confessed. "I don't know him, but here's the thing: I definitely feel like a lot of the hate I received was, like, residual [toward] Gavin. Which is crazy, because our characters are so not the same." Gentry said he understands what Casalegno, 25 - whose show is currently airing its third and final season - is going through, despite the pair never having met. "I get what it's like to have everybody be like, 'Man, this guy sucks!'" Netflix Like Casalegno, Gentry has had to learn how to weather the insanity of fandom. And sometimes, the critiques can hit uncomfortably close. "This job is just a personal business. It is my person at the end of the day... I saw someone say when the [season 2] trailer came out, 'No matter how attractive Alex gets, I just can't be attracted to him because he's 5'7 in real life.' Which is like, that's fine. But also - have you never heard of the short king face card theory?" he said with a laugh. "The way that I look, to some degree, is the way that I look. And so when people are critical of that, it's like, I'm gonna take that with me forever. Whereas when people are critical of Alex, it's a little more understandable, because my job as an actor is to showcase a character's flaws just as much as their strengths." Gentry clearly understands that fan feedback is part of the job, but admitted that the intensity of splitting into relationship "teams" for shows like MLWTWB was not something he was familiar with before joining the cast. "I've never seen The Vampire Diaries. I'm not into this stuff, and people very much are. I didn't realize how much people rally behind their person, their team," he said, adding that fandom culture can be both "toxic" and "funny," considering the shows are already written before they're released. "It's not Love Island. The whole thing is planned out," he said with a smile. Still, he acknowledges that it's not always easy to brush off the noise. "Intellectually, I know that's not me, that it's this character I've created," he said. "But the character I created comes from me. Alex's heartbreak is min