The Upside Down is coming for you. With the highly anticipated return of Stranger Things upon us, “Seven Stranger Days” takes you behind the scenes and inside the lives of your Hawkins favorites with insight from the cast, crew and even the Duffer brothers.
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Warning: This article contains mild spoilers for season 4 of Stranger Things.
Joe Keery and Gaten Matarazzo chat quietly on a soundstage in Hollywood, away from the cameras. Their friendship has been cemented after seven years together on Stranger Things, playing unlikely besties: bully turned babysitter Steve Harrington and unapologetic nerd Dustin Henderson. But this relationship takes on a different dynamic in Season 4, thanks to the cast’s newest addition, Joe Quinn. Viewers will meet Eddie Munson — the king of the misfits at Hawkins High School, a virtuoso Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master and Dustin’s latest role model — when episodes premiere Friday, May 27.
As the group reveals at Tudum’s photo shoot, rock climbing became Keery, Matarazzo and Quinn’s bonding activity — and mental escape — during Season 4 production in Atlanta, especially when COVID-19 delayed filming for months. “We had rock climbing, working, that’s it,” says Keery, dressed in a sharp suit instead of the denim duds and T-shirts fans are used to seeing Steve wear on the show.
Quinn, for one, needed that escape. On the British actor’s first day on set, he found himself thrown into a stressful scene with the Hawkins crew in a boathouse. It also happened to be the day Stranger Things shut down until further notice. “What a first day,” says Quinn. “Crazy.” When the cast returned, they found solace in group physical activities. “Because of the COVID situation, I wasn’t able to go home,” Quinn says. “So we were able to investigate our friendship more than I think we probably would have otherwise.” Clearly, Stranger Things’ best bromance had just gotten another player.
“It’s just romance, straight up,” Matarazzo counters. Keery agrees, adding, “It’s romance — cut to the chase.” As with Dustin and Steve’s heartwarming on-screen journey, there’s no fear of feelings here between the actors, no whiff of toxic masculinity. Indeed, the group declares, Season 4 is built on a three-way platonic love triangle, one Quinn was excited to join as Eddie, the rock ’n’ roll outcast in contrast to Steve’s jock playboy with a heart of gold.
“It’s a strange situation because I was aware of the show before I was given the part, and I was a big fan of it — and of these two guys, too,” Quinn admits, sitting by Keery and Matarazzo. “So it was very comforting to [come in] and realize that they’re just people doing a job, and they don’t take themselves too seriously.”
While the trio might be all smiles and larks when they’re on break from production in Atlanta, their on-screen alter egos have plenty of danger to face. After all, this is Stranger Things, a show where the fate of the world consistently hangs on the interdimensional problem-solving abilities of a few Midwestern teens.
The newest episodes, the first since Season 3 premiered in July 2019, find the characters scattered: Telekinetic Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) has moved to California with the Byers family; Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) is freezing away in a Russian prison; and Dustin, Steve and friends are holding it down in Stranger Thing’s fictional home base, Hawkins, Indiana, as yet another series of supernatural horrors begin to terrorize their once sleepy town. “Everyone was shooting elsewhere a lot of the time. We were kind of the only unit that was in Atlanta. So that was familiar,” Keery says, with Matarazzo adding, “It always felt like we were filming our show.”
In Season 4, which is split into two parts, co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer build on the mythology of previous seasons by tossing a new big bad at their protagonists: Vecna, a mysterious and powerful villain from the evil-spawning Upside Down. Eddie, unlike his battle-hardened friends, is fresh to monster fighting. His bewildered perspective ensures Stranger Things never loses the humanity necessary to ground its dimension-jumping action. While Eddie may love a good round of D&D, he is horrified to be living the game. This pushes Dustin and Steve into the role of apocalypse-stopping veterans.
“The Duffers really created a character that I don’t think the show has seen,” Keery says of Eddie, “I think that [choice] was an invigorating and refreshing thing that shook up the group. So that was a real welcome change.” Matarazzo compares Eddie’s debut to the entrance of Sadie Sink’s Max in Season 2 or Maya Hawke’s Robin in Season 3.
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As with those other characters, Eddie’s introduction was initially meant to stir up a little friction among the tight-knit Stranger Things crew. (Remember the simmering Season 2 battle for Max’s heart?) But the Duffers changed their minds. “There was going to be more of a Steve-Eddie rivalry, and we just didn’t have time,” Matt Duffer says. Plus, there’s the matter of just how lovable the shaggy-haired Dungeon Master happens to be. “We’re just like, ‘He’s so charismatic that it’s like, ‘How can you not like Eddie?’ ” Ross Duffer adds. So, instead, Eddie offers an alternative look into Dustin’s future — and an expected foil for Steve.
“Season 4 is really about finding yourself and confidence in yourself,” says Matarazzo, noting that self-assurance is something Dustin has struggled with but is improving upon thanks to Steve and Eddie. “Steve helped him feel confident, but Eddie made him feel accepted for who he is. Not that he isn’t grateful for what Steve has always provided him.” Thanks to Dustin’s dynamic with Eddie, he’s finally at ease with “not needing to change himself for the first time in a while.”
While Matarazzo is most excited for viewers to see some upcoming Season 4 moments between Dustin and Eddie, he says that his “favorite scene” ever is one he shot with Keery. The 19-year-old nods back to Season 2’s sixth episode, when Dustin and Steve have a heart-to-heart about confidence, romance and the secret weapon that is four puffs of Farrah Fawcett spray. “They just happen to find themselves in a similar situation during a really weird time and try to find something that’s comforting and like, ‘Ooh, I get you,’” he says. “That was odd for both characters, because neither of them really wanted to be there.” Until, of course, they did, thereby creating one of Stranger Things’ most beloved, consistent friendships.
Keery finds it “touching and cool” to see the love fans have for the relationships he and cast members have forged since Stranger Things’ 2016 debut. “When anybody gets into this industry, they want to be involved with something that has a big impact on people’s lives. To have that is incredible,” he says. Matarazzo is still “mind boggled,” six years later, to see how many people the series affects worldwide. The Stranger Things Instagram account alone has 15.9 million followers.
“You kind of just forget about how much of an impact it has on people until they come up and tell you how much it does,” Matarazzo says. “A lot of people say, ‘You got me through quarantine,’ which is emotional and really exciting to hear, that what we do provides at least comfort to those around us.”
Stranger Things Season 4 is poised to offer viewers even more comfort — despite the deadly supernatural intrigue plaguing Hawkins and beyond; don’t forget that Demogorgon stalking around Russia in Season 3. From California to Kamchatka, fans will witness the characters they love risking it all for the people around them. For Keery, that devotion is the ultimate theme of the season. “[It’s about] just stepping up for your friends,” Keery begins, noting that his co-star in a Scoops Away sailor costume, Maya Hawke, was the first to come to that realization. (The Stranger Things cast really is faithful.) “Especially in our Hawkins crew, everybody is so loyal to each other. That was a really nice message that hopefully people can take away.”
Quinn points out how particularly integral this support system is for the characters of Stranger Things, who fall somewhere on the young adult spectrum. Younger heroes like Dustin are only just starting to find their footing as individuals, while someone like Steve is reconciling his big-man-on-campus high school days with a less-than-sensational postgrad existence. Even if there weren’t murderous dimension-hopping baddies to fight, growing up is simply difficult to do. “Your friends get you through that period in your life,” Quinn says. “We are kind of emboldened as a group to look after each other and have each other’s back. That gets you through being a teenager.”
As with adolescence, high school and ’80s pop culture, all good things must come to an end — including Stranger Things, which will wrap with its upcoming fifth season. Matarazzo admits it’s “comforting but scary” to go into his last season as Dustin. “What’s freeing about it is being able to make choices and basically doing what you want,” he says. “It doesn’t ever feel outside of the character because it’s kind of second nature.”
Also second nature: Matarazzo, Keery and Quinn huddled in front of a camera laughing at a joke only they can hear. “My Boo (Hitman’s Club Mix)” bumps around them. It’s a moment as fitting as Steve Harrington’s best Members Only jacket.
