George Rexstrew on Sexual Awakenings and Physical Touch in Dead Boy Detectives

Despite this being his first major role, George Rexstrew has been blowing audiences away with his performance as Edwin Payne in the new Netflix series, Dead Boy Detectives. He sat down with us recently to talk about drawing from the comic books, exploring Edwin’s inner child, and bonding with his co-star, Jayden Revri. To understand what it might be like to be a ghost, he fully embraced his character’s Edwardian-style costume and wandered the empty streets of Vancouver at odd hours with Jayden. He emphasized that his connection to Jayden was immediate and they spent a lot of time preparing for scenes, including running through lines together in their rooms. 

Beyond the physicalities of his character, George highlighted that one of his primary focuses was portraying Edwin’s complex sexual awakening as an exploration of inner child and discovery of his desire to be loved. Different types of physical touch played a significant part in Edwin’s relationship with each of his friends and George expressed his enjoyment of depicting his character’s varying degrees of comfort with touch. Although Edwin has been around for hundreds of years, George wanted to ensure that there was still a sense of innocence to his actions, so he took inspiration from the comic books whilst leaving some creative room for his own interpretation. 

Watch the full conversation below.

Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine decided not to enter the afterlife to stay on Earth and investigate crimes that involve supernatural stuff.