Warning: This story contains spoilers from Stranger Things Season 4, Volume 1.
Volume 1 of Stranger Things Season 4 has finally landed, do you copy? To celebrate the launch of the most jaw-dropping season of Stranger Things yet, on Friday, May 27, the cast and creators of the sci-fi drama gathered at Netflix’s FYSEE event space in Hollywood to screen the premiere episode, “The Hellfire Club,” and tease what’s to come in the season ahead.
Moderated by Los Angeles Times television critic Lorraine Ali, the panel was comprised of Upside Down masterminds Matt and Ross Duffer (directors, writers and executive producers) and stars Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers) and Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman).
Below, venture into the horrifying Creel House with Tudum as we dream a little dream of Vecna and break down the most fascinating morsels from the panel.
1. Nancy’s cowl-neck costume was not always the most cooperative As the race to stop Vecna turned more dire in the latter half of the season, Dyer’s cowl neck wasn’t keen on staying in place, which proved difficult for production. “I had this cowl neck this season, [and] we didn’t really think through the continuity of a cowl neck,” Dyer said. “But it was kind of a headache for me and the wardrobe team at some point, with all the moving around and just making sure it’s in the right place.”
2. Matt Duffer knows the last shot of the series. While the pandemic forced production on Season 4 to shut down for six months after only two to three weeks of initial filming, the Duffer brothers used that time to finesse the arcs for Season 4. “For the first time ever, we were able to write all the scripts, and then we still had time, so we outlined with our writers all of [Season] 5,” Matt Duffer said. “Which is really nice, because then we reworked some of 4 to make sure 5 worked as well as it could. So it is all outlined. We know the ending. I know the last shot.”
3. Noah Schnapp hints that Will doesn’t have a “label” for himself yet. As the premiere event screened the first episode of the season, Schnapp indicated that from that episode alone, “we kind of do” already have a hunch at what’s plaguing this boy who’s been through so much on this show already. “It’s tough for Will,” Schnapp explained. “I think the [Duffer] brothers do an amazing job of showing that, at a young age, it’s that confusion and not really knowing yet. And there is no label yet for him because he is still growing up and still finding himself. He is in that teenage phase where he doesn’t know who he is yet.”
4. Schnapp infused his relationship with his own sister into the sibling dynamics on the show with Jonathan and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). Heaton highlighted that Jonathan has always felt a sense of protection and “extreme responsibility to his family — to his mother [Joyce, played by Winona Ryder] and to be there for his brother” Will. Jonathan is “kind of lost” this season, as he’s struggling with the move to Lenora Hills, California, and leaving his girlfriend Nancy back in Hawkins, but Heaton suggested his connection to his family “comes back together again” over the course of the season. Schnapp echoed that Will’s relationship with Jonathan is “super important. I have a sister, and I remember taking that into consideration when I was working with [Charlie] and then also playing a brother-like role with Millie,” he said. “It was nice to use that real-life family bond in the show.”
5. Brett Gelman took karate lessons to prep for playing Murray this season. As we discover that Murray is now a black belt in karate (and has class from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays), Gelman took that newfound hobby of his character seriously. “I actually trained for two to three months before we shut down due to the pandemic,” Gelman recalled. “We got a video every time you learned a new move,” said Ross Duffer, to which Gelman added, “See guys, it’s worth it!”
6. The Duffers emailed the Game of Thrones creators to find the perfect designer for Vecna’s suit. Way back in Season 1, the Demogorgon was the first horrific monster from the Upside Down introduced on the show. “ [Back then], we didn’t have as much money, so it was a guy in a suit, which is what we wanted to do,” Matt recalled. So when it came to crafting Vecna this season, they wanted to bring back the man-in-the-suit element. But in order to pull it off, they needed “someone amazing” to build the suit. They took inspiration from the 2019 miniseries Chernobyl to start. “This is how long ago we had the idea. Chernobyl was just airing on HBO, which was amazing, [with] all the radiation burn victim effects. I was like, ‘Whoever did that?’ Because it’s like a horror movie,” said Matt. And who was it, might you ask? Barrie Gower, who also designed the Night King on Game of Thrones. “I was like, ‘That’s the perfect mix of that. You get the Night King and Chernobyl,’ ” Matt said, explaining that they emailed Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss. “And we’re just like, ‘How is this guy, Barrie Gower?’ They sent one of those emails back like, ‘Why are you even ask[ing]... This isn’t even a question. Hire the guy. He’s a genius,’ and he is. It’s a work of art.” And the result? There’s an actor playing Vecna for 95% of the time using practical effects. Only five shots in the whole 13 hours are not a person in a suit on screen. On average, it took nine hours for the actor to get into makeup, although by the end of the shoot, they got it down to five. “But it was still a lot of time in the [makeup] chair,” Ross said.
7. The Duffers wanted you to feel conflicted about Eleven hitting Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin) in the face with a roller skate. Angela is quite the bully to Eleven at her California high school. But Angela pushes her tormenting over the edge when she humiliates Eleven in front of her boyfriend Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) at the local skating rink. So much so that Eleven hits her in the face with a roller skate. “Angela has problems for sure. Something’s wrong with her,” Ross said.. Gelman proposed, “I think the real question of that is: What’s more violent? Smacking somebody in the face or shaming someone’s dead father in front of a group of people? That, to me, was way more brutal in a way.” Initially, the Duffers talked about the film Let the Right One In and the sequence where the kid whacks his bully with a hockey stick and blood starts pouring. “And other movies have done this, like Joker kind of did it, where it gets you into the mindset. It’s amazing, if you can pull it off where you want it to happen, and you feel it’s a rush. You feel like you’ve done it, committed it yourself,” said Matt. He’s also seen people online in response to the Stranger Things scene say, “That was absolutely the right thing.” But in his mind, ultimately “the goal was to go, ‘Yes!’ And then start to reflect on why and how you felt that way.”
8. The Duffers knew Sadie Sink could handle Max’s storyline this season. Max’s storyline in Season 4 is heavy, to say the least, as she mourns her brother Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery) and is cursed by Vecna. According to the Duffers, they lean into and take inspiration from their actors when crafting their character arcs. “We knew we could throw [Sadie] a crazy curveball and she would hit a home run, and she did,” said Matt. He added that Sink’s performances in Episode 4, “Dear Billy” and the finale, in particular, are “really remarkable, what Sadie was able to do.”
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