How Stranger Things Keeps Its Cast (And Crew) Young
The show’s success is largely due to its 1980s setting, which provides a Cold War rationale for the adults’ behavior and gives the teen heroes a certain pre-internet innocence that appeals to people who grew up in that decade.
He’s known for films like Night at the Museum and Free Guy, and more recently, The Adam Project.
“I was a tween and a teen in the ’80s, so these are cultural, historical touchstones for me,” says Stranger Things creator Shawn Levy. “The Duffers have even more nerd nostalgia affinity for a lot of these touchstones,” he adds.
Robert Englund will play Victor Creel, a disturbed man accused of a terrible murder in 1950s Hawkins. The actor is best known for his role as Freddy Krueger in the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. “The only thing more fun than meeting and working with Robert was watching the Duffers meet and chat with Robert,” says Levy.
Stranger Things creator Shawn Levy explains how the show’s supernatural creatures are named. The Demogorgon gave way to the Mind Flayer, and season four will introduce Vecna, a name straight out of the D&D Monster Manual. “It’s literally our characters in the world of the show finding language for the crazy stuff that is going on in Hawkins,” Levy says.
“I love the meta level of the fact that even the characters in Stranger Things use cultural references to understand the supernatural occurrences,” says Stranger Things co-creator Shawn Levy. “Vecna is a significant one both in D&D lore but also in what’s about to be Stranger Things lore,” he explains. It’s literally these words that people think we made up. but no, it’s characters in Stranger Things appropriating the lexicon of D & D.
“Things never quite seem to stay stable for as long as we’d like in good old fictional Hawkins,” says executive producer Marc Benioff.
“This time, there’s plenty for each group to worry about besides other-dimensional beings and government conspiracies,” says director David Levy. “How we flail in our attempt to find ourselves is the way we locate our identity among others,” he says of teens’ attempts to find themselves. “These are struggles and aspirations that all of us relate to,” he adds.
The actors have aged well beyond the three-year scope of the current timeline, but that doesn’t stop them from looking like their younger selves. “The only friendships and authentic identity you’re ever going to be able to hold on to are the ones that aren’t looking outside yourself for meaning,” he says.
“The [childlike joy] that happens when these kids are reunited with each other is adorable,” says Stranger Things director Steven Spielberg. Recapturing childhood, even for those who didn’t grow up in the ’80s, is a crucial ingredient of Stranger Things. “I have always firmly believed that our kid-self is right there with us, and I think that’s a beautiful fact of humanity,” says Levy.
Young audiences already possess that sense of adventure, but adults also want to re-capture it by watching Stranger Things, both for the horror and the fun.
