Every 'Stranger Things' Video to Watch Before the Final Season

Finn was the funniest.

At a certain point he started directing the kids

and saying like, oh you do this and you do that.

And Finn is now a director

and I just cast his first feature.

He was right to be directing those kids then

'cause he's a natural

and I was super happy to get to see that very beginning

of his directing career.

[upbeat music]

Hi, I am Carmen Cuba, casting director

for Stranger Things here with Vanity Fair

to talk about the casting process.

If I'm honest, when we cast Stranger Things,

we had no idea that it was gonna be a huge hit.

We had no idea it was gonna go on for how long, you know,

sort of the foresight

to imagine a future with these characters.

But I was really just trying to get the best version

of it in the present.

Very early on the Duffers

and I discussed that these parts were not likely gonna be

able to be pulled off by a kid

who didn't have some experience.

So while some of my process involves

being out in the world and seeing a kid

that looks a certain way

and you know sort of talking to his parents

and saying, Hey, does your kid wanna act?

This was not gonna be that

because it was going to be such hard work,

it was gonna be every day for months on end

and very specific dialogue.

So that was helpful because from the very beginning we were

like, okay, no sort of street casting for this.

We're gonna start with theater schools, acting coaches,

kids who've been on Broadway,

the kids on the Stranger Things cast have not

popped up out of nowhere.

They've been working really hard

for years prior to us finding them.

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Noah Schnapp. I'm 10 years old.

Am I weird?

It's just sometime I feel, I don't know,

like I'm stuck.

Noah's audition was really special

because it really informed our need for finding somebody

who was young and innocent

but who had a strong charisma

that would keep the viewers interested in why these kids

were so dedicated to finding him

because he doesn't actually show up that much in season one.

But we knew that he needed to really carry season two.

So we were looking for a lot from this character

and he had experience on stage, just shot a film

with Spielberg.

Really just brought it every time we called him in.

So it was very exciting to see this first tape

and to know that we would have him continue on in

the process with us.

My name is Millie Brown. I'm 11 years.

[indistinct]

I can see him.

I saw them.

That clip of Millie is also very memorable

because we had had her do the scenes first.

Prior to this we could tell that she could cry

but she hadn't quite done it

and the Duffers just asked if we could have her try it again

and sort of see how emotional she could get with it.

And obviously she got very emotional

and it was actually shocking that someone

that young could do that.

And another thing about Millie

during the audition process is that she's British

and she did everything including the Skype

with the Duffers in an American accent.

So we sort of forgot that she even was British.

So she's pulling all of

that acting off while also doing an accent.

And at that young age it was very impressive

as you can see on the series.

Hi, I'm Finn Wolfhard. I'm sick, I'm late.

I'm four foot 11. I'm 12 years old.

Nancy, listen to me.

What the hell Mike. Listen.

Do you remember two days ago?

But them had to trick when it looked like my Millennium

Falcon was really flying.

Finn's audition was fun

because it was done from his bed while he was in the middle

of being super sick.

None of that showed.

You could tell he had energy and life

and was really excited to play the part.

No, I'll prove it.

Most excellent promise you can make. Swear it.

Okay now close your eyes, open.

And had sort of the same adventurous,

playful spirit as his character.

So that was very memorable about that audition.

Hi, my name is Caleb McLaughlin. I'm 13 years old.

Listen, except I didn't tie a two string.

It was actually flying.

This could be the most excellent promise you can make.

Open.

Caleb was fantastic. He's somebody who'd been on Broadway.

We knew he had experience

and he just brought sort of an energy

that the other kids fed into,

all of them together have a very distinct energy

and personality that create this friend group.

And we saw that immediately from his very first audition.

My name's Gaten Matarazzo and I'm 12 years old.

This is probably the most serious,

most important thing ever.

Swear first.

The most excellent promise you can make.

Just stand over there, Nancy.

You not coming out until your eyes are closed.

[Nancy] Okay, okay, they're closed.

Open. I have absolute power.

Say it.

You couldn't have predicted

or sort of sought out someone like Gaten.

So he was an excellent surprise.

What he brought to the character was not what we imagined

and it also made us realize

that we didn't even have any idea

what it could be Until we met him.

He was sort of the first one that created the part

outside of how it was written.

From the very beginning.

The Demogorgon is tired of your silly human bickering!

It stomps towards you.

Boom.

Fireball him, Will.

Another stomp, boom.

Cast Protection. He roars in anger.

When we got them all together

we had already fallen in love with their tapes.

We knew that they were surprising

but bringing them all together, do scenes together

and step out and watch each other,

just the dynamics on screen were exciting enough

but the dynamics off screen really sealed the deal

'cause you could tell that they would be a team.

They played off of each other.

They weren't competitive, they were really supportive

and enthusiastic.

Try to imagine what it must have been like when they cast

the Little Rascals.

It feels like a version of that,

which I think you feel on the screen when you watch them.

How's Bob The Brain? Don't call him that.

Sorry. Old habit. He's good. We're good.

Good.

When I first read the script,

I definitely felt this pull towards Winona

and it felt like the combination of kids with her

as a mom was a winning formula.

And she did not audition.

She just met with the Duffers and they talked through it

and I think it was very surprising for her

that she responded to the material and to them.

But I just felt like she would have a connection to it

and to them, even though it was just a guess on my part,

I'm happy that it was a good guess.

And David, David is someone I'd been watching for years,

you know, for me, as much as I loved the famous person

that he was always in a scene opposite,

I always found myself looking at him,

watching his performance

and just sort of as a casting director,

hoping that one day I would have something

where he would be the famous person in the scene opposite

someone less famous than him.

And this really was the perfect opportunity.

And he auditioned for me in a

tiny room in New York City and he's acting

and immediately as soon as I sent that audition off

to the guys, I knew he was our hopper.

♪ You can never surrender ♪ Stop.

You don't like it? No.

The evolution of the show

has definitely brought challenges

and each season it sort of escalates

or becomes a different version of the original challenge.

I would say after season one the unexpected challenge was

that there were a lot of famous people who wanted

to be on the show and who said, I'll do anything.

I'll do a day, I'll do three days, I'll be an extra.

And while that seemed very enticing,

the challenge was really trying to stick to what the spirit

of the show was, which is the combination of these kids

who we didn't know with Winona, who we all love.

I would say the other challenge,

which is probably pretty obvious,

is that our cast is so talented.

Anyone we bring to the show has to be as talented

as they are and that's a very high bar.

A good story is that Paul Riser was not aware of the show

but his son thankfully was a super fan.

His son was like, you have to do it. That was super helpful.

I think that we do get a lot of of children of these people

that we're hoping to have on the show being big

cheerleaders for us.

And that's super exciting too.

This year's different, this year it's my year.

I can feel it.

86 baby.

I think season four has so many incredible new characters

and that the actors that we were lucky enough

to have in those roles really just turned it up

from some roles that just had a few scenes

to Eddie Munsonm, with Joe Quinn.

It really was impressive.

Like Robert England this season, actually Robert auditioned

for the role of the mayor in season three.

So we had already seen him the year before.

We're so grateful that he would audition

because another thing that is key to Stranger Things

is that the Duffers really figure out a lot about the

characters through auditions.

So they don't necessarily sit down

and say like, we're looking for someone

who does this, this and this.

We sort of have these sides that the material

that people audition with

and then they watch a lot more than a lot of directors

and creators do because they learn about the character

through people's auditions, which is an amazing process

for me and really fun.

What are you doing here, Max?

Would you like to join them?

For Vecna, we didn't have materials yet

and it sort of came to me while the Duffers were

still developing the character.

The only things we really knew were that he needed

to be both characters

and that he needed to be at least 5'10

and have a very thin face and physique.

Keep in mind we're not allowed to say

what anything is for this show.

So I basically released something saying

that I needed people who fit that description.

Then we used a scene from Primal Fear

and a scene from Hellraiser.

So knowing it was Stranger Things

but not knowing what the character was and doing fake sides.

It's all that kind of situation is always slightly mayhem.

But when someone really sort of brings all of those bits

of information together into again into their own thing,

then it really stands out.

And with Jamie we immediately were so excited

because he did somehow combine the energy

of Stranger Things

with those two very different movies

and that was what we always looked for

and that was what he brought.

[boy screams]

[water splashes]

[birds fluttering]

Stranger Things was not that difficult to cast,

the material was excellent

and that always makes the job of casting much easier.

The other thing that made it pretty easy is the fact

that nobody had any idea that anyone would see this show.

So there were very low expectations in a good way

because the low expectations coming from sort

of the gatekeepers which allowed the Duffers, Sean Levy

and I to really have a lot of freedom and be really creative

and genuinely just pick the group of kids

and adults that would make the show feel the way

that they had it in their heads.

It wasn't really that hard.

I breath from my diaphragm,

I'm scared that it's gonna like affect something.

You'll be fine.

Is your name Gaten Matarazzo?

Yes.

[Man] Are you 16 years old?

Yeah.

[Man] Do you play the character Dustin

in Stranger Things?

I do.

[Man] Are we all calibrated?

[Man] Yeah.

Ready to go.

[Man] Then let's get started.

Okay.

[Man] First thing we'll talk about Stranger Things.

When you first read the script,

did you think the show would be as big as it is?

No, I hoped obviously,

but not a lot of us had like the greatest amount

of hopes for it really blowing up just

because it was a very small production.

And this is

before like a lot of Netflix shows were even coming out.

So this was like only a couple really I think.

Orange Is The New Black was the big one at the time.

And it was like, Oh what if it's one of those?

What if it's one of those?

And we're like, Oh come on guys,

let's take it back a notch.

[Man] Do you ever get stopped by fans

when you leave your house?

Someone did come to my house once.

I was watching a movie with my girlfriend

and all of a sudden I hear a knock on the door.

I thought it was like, I don't know if it was like my

brother coming home from school or something.

Open up the door and there these two little kids

and I'm like, Oh Girl Scout cookies, yes.

And I was so excited and they're like, Are you dating?

I was like, yeah.

I didn't know if they were gonna gimme

like a letter or something.

They was like, Can we get a picture?

And I was like, and all of a sudden I find out the next day

they went to my grandma's house

and she invited them in for like coffee

'cause that's just my grandma.

It's hilarious.

I don't know if like they had mutual friends or something

or I don't know how they figured it out

but like they, my grandma invited them in

but it's like something you should never do.

But they were great people.

[Man] Do you get a lot of fan mail?

Yeah, a lot of fan mails.

I can't always read them though

'cause I mean there's a lot of, they just pile in like

there's not always a lot of places to put them.

There's like a part of my room, it's just like a bunch

of like letters and like paintings and stuff.

I look like a sociopath that's in love with myself

because like there's a bunch of paintings like of me

that are like next to my bed on my dresser

and it freaks me out when I'm looking at 'em.

But a lot of 'em are so great I just want to keep 'em

because they're so talented and people put

so much time and effort into them.

But a lot of times it's hard to

read all of them or keep all of them.

[Man] Have you ever met someone who has a tattoo of you?

Yes, I have.

I've seen pictures of people with my face on there.

I've actually signed someone's arm before

and they came back the next day

and they had tattooed it to themselves.

Does that freak you out? A little bit, yeah.

[Man] Feeling excited for the new season?

Yeah.

[Man] Will one summer really change everything?

In ways.

[Man] Does Netflix train you how to answer

when people ask you for spoilers?

Actually yeah.

They send in like a guideline

before press junkets and they say what you can say

what you can't say to let you know exactly how

to handle certain situations.

But I mean we've done it for a while

so I feel like we're pretty good at it.

[Man] So can you gimme some spoilers?

No.

[Man] Does one of the main characters die this season?

Yes.

[Man] Will this character, Will ever catch a break?

Yes.

[Man] Lou, do you know what's gonna happen

in the final season?

No.

I know that they have certain things planned.

I don't know what they don't usually like to express that.

[Man] Do you know any spoilers for other Netflix shows?

No. No I don't.

[Man] Does Netflix punish you

if you spoil Stranger Things?

I don't know 'cause I haven't done it yet.

I sure hope not.

[Man] Do you ever read fan theories

about the show on Reddit?

Yeah, sometimes I do.

Sometimes they're cool, sometimes they're accurate

and sometimes they're just lame. [laughs]

[Man] Do you mind if I read you a couple?

Please.

[Man] Do you think it's possible that Will

has psychic powers

that can open the gates to the Upside Down?

Maybe, that'd be really cool. He's got something going on.

[Man] Have you ever pondered the idea

that Hopper might actually be Eleven's death?

No. I've never really liked that theory.

There's a lot of people that think that,

but it just doesn't make any sense.

I mean you look back to his daughter

looks nothing like Millie

and the age doesn't match up with the time

with how much he's aged from that point.

And it just wouldn't make any sense.

I think it'd be farfetched and Eleven would recognize him.

[Man] If you could, would you bring back

Barb from the Upside Down?

I wouldn't, simply because I think her death

was essential in demonstrating that nobody was safe.

Even the most innocent, likable, relatable character

couldn't be saved from what's going on.

And I think that really resonated with audiences

and I think that's why they wanted her to come back

'cause they liked her so much and

because she didn't deserve it and it wasn't fair,

that's why she died.

[Man] Sam, do you think the Upside Down is actually

an alternate universe?

Yeah. That's interesting though.

There's a lot of theories that

it might be part from the future.

[Man] Do you think the Upside Down could be part

of the multiverse?

What do you mean?

[Man] Like maybe it's part of the Marvel Multiverse.

Oh, something like that.

I don't know about that.

I think that they wanna keep it within

the Stranger Things universe as a whole but...

But maybe? That'd be interesting

to think about.

I think it's definitely a lot closer

to home than we might believe

or maybe even a lot further.

I think there's a lot more about it we don't know

and I'm really excited to see where they take it

to see if we can learn more about it.

[Man] Do you think it's possible

that Riverdale is the Upside Down

and that's why Barb's there?

[laughs] I don't, I don't think so, no.

But that's interesting to think about.

[Man] Did you like your character's

makeover at the end of season two?

I wouldn't personally, I dress up that way

but I think it was very fun.

It actually didn't take that long to to do

but it was very fun getting to dress up like that

and I enjoyed it a lot.

[Man] So you'd never worn that hairstyle in regular life?

Well I mean I have technically during the shoots

but I wouldn't use it as a stylistic choice, no.

[Man] Lou.

One was largely deceptive.

What? Oh goodness.

[Man] Who would you say is a better mom?

Joyce Byers or Steve Harrington?

Probably Joyce.

She never stops trying, she never stops wanting what's best

for her kids and she doesn't care if she

puts herself in harm for that.

And Steve's a very good protector

but it seems like he's always the one in a way he seems

to bring them towards the trouble even though like he should

probably keep them back.

I feel like every time, I mean of course he doesn't,

never really wants to bring them there

but when he is there like he's helps him out in that sense.

But I think Joyce, I think Joyce would die

for any of the kids.

I think Steve might too now, but before maybe not.

[Man] Do you ship Hopper and Joyce?

I do. Yeah.

I think that's a really cool,

I think it's interesting plot line.

I think that would be really cool

if they went further with that.

I do.

[Man] Season three comes out July 4th.

Seven, Four. Seven plus four is 11.

Oh my... [laughs]

[Man] Coincidence?

Most likely.

[Man] Let's move on [bangs] to your co-stars.

You and the other Stranger Things cast seem

to get along very well.

Very well.

[Man] Do y'all have a group chat?

We have several I guess.

I think there are some depending on like what's going on.

'Cause sometimes there are press junkets that happen with,

there's just three of us so we have a group chat

and there's group chats with all of us or,

and we don't really use it a lot,

especially when we're in Atlanta

'cause we see each other for like 10 hours a day every day.

We don't really need to text.

[Man] Is there any one person who texts too much?

No, actually we don't text each other a lot.

I think we should.

[Man] Is there a collab in the works between your band

and Finn Wolfhard's?

In my mind there is. That'd be really cool. I'd like that.

And even if it wasn't,

even if we didn't make like music together,

at least like a show together would be a lot of fun.

I think that would be great.

[Man] Do you know who would win in a battle of the bands?

I'm gonna say them right now just

'cause they have more original music

and they all play instruments.

[Man] Really?

Yeah, that's probably like the only reason.

I'm gonna say them now, but who knows?

Because I mean we're still making our stuff

so we gotta like establish our sound first I think.

But someday. Someday. Someday,

[Man] Someday.

Would you say that this man Joe Curie,

is more of a heart throb than this man,

Dacre Montgomery?

Hmm. No I wouldn't.

For some reason I just feel like,

I don't know why, but for some reason like every one

of the female friends that I have have asked me

about Dacre before, I wouldn't. [laughs]

How did they stack up against this guy,

Noah Centineo.

My girlfriend's in love with him.

She tells me all the time.

I don't know.

His name comes up more with that topic.

So I'm gonna say him. [laughs]

[Man] Can you tell the difference

between the two Duffer brothers?

I can and I know exactly how I can.

Matt has this gray streak in the front of his hair.

It's natural.

He doesn't know why he has it and he is always had it.

That's how I told them apart to begin with.

But eventually like you just start

to like decipher certain features.

I don't even think you even realize what they are

and like eventually it's just like,

it's not even a question anymore.

At first, sometimes I'd mix 'em up,

especially when it was like night shoots.

[Man] So you're sure you can tell them apart?

Not if you show me like when they were like kids.

If you showed me like pictures when they were like students,

probably not, but now definitely.

[Man] Which one is this?

It's Ross.

I believe that's Matt. No way. It's not Matt.

That's not Matt. That's Ross.

Is that Matt?

Oh sorry buddy.

[Man] Does the cast ever go out to karaoke together?

They did karaoke for the season two rap party

and I couldn't attend.

I had to get outta there really quick.

I was upset about that,

but I had never gone to do karaoke with them before.

I'd like to though.

[Man] So you've done karaoke on your own?

I have done karaoke on my own.

[sighs] You have a go-to song? I think it depends.

I'm a musical theater guy so sometimes I'll sing that

and usually people don't really care about music

and musical theater because it's in no way fun

to listen to a karaoke.

But it's fun.

[Man] Who would win in a karaoke Off.

You or Millie Bobby Brown?

I don't know. I might say her.

She seems like much more upbeat,

energetic about the whole thing.

So I think she might like be a little bit more comfortable

doing it.

Whenever I do it, I actually go to try

and sing as best I can and that's not what karaoke's for.

Instead of having fun, but I'm like,

I have something to prove.

I [indistinct] karaoke.

[Man] What about a rap battle?

Oh, she'd totally win. For sure she'd totally win.

I can't rap to save my life.

[Man] What about you versus this person? Caleb McLaughlin?

Mm, it's hard to say actually.

Karaoke we're still saying?

Yeah. I don't know.

I think I might take him on.

I think I might. I think I might take him on karaoke.

But we have to actually have an official battle to see.

[Man] Sounds like the gauntlet's been thrown.

I think so. I think so.

I'm excited now.

Okay. Final question. Okay.

[Man] Any point during this interview

did you lie and we didn't catch you?

I don't think so, no. You're an open book?

I'm an open book.

I just found out that I'm an open book.

I don't lie a lot apparently. [laughs]

[gavel bangs]

Natalia? Yes.

Charlie. Hello.

[Man] We're gonna be taking a lie detector test today.

One of you will be hooked up to the machine

while the other asks questions and then you'll switch.

Who would like to go first?

I'll go first.

You'll go first? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

[upbeat music]

Do I look afraid.

Just a bit. [group laughing]

Nothing to worry about.

Okay. Is your real name Charlie Heaton?

Yes.

Were you born in Burlington, England?

No, I was born in Leeds.

Hmm. Grew up in Burlington.

Are you ready to take this lie detector test?

I think so. Okay, let's get started.

[gavel bangs]

So you grew up in the UK. Mm-hm.

Do you wanna move back?

Sometimes.

Would you say you prefer fish

and chips over a hamburger and fries?

Yeah. Yeah.

Is it fair to say you're more

of a Prince Harry than a Prince William?

[laughs] Yeah. That's fair.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Would you say I'm more of a Megan than a Kate?

Yes.

Does being British mean you have to care about the royals?

No. No, I don't.

Was it hard to perfect your American accent?

No. Hmm.

Have you ever had a hard time understanding my accent?

Sometimes.

Vague.

No. I'd say no.

No, actually no.

Do you think I do a good British accent?

Yes.

Is it true your birthday is February 6th?

Yes. So you're an Aquarius?

Yes.

Would you say you relate to the song Age Of Aquarius?

I don't know.

[Woman] Do you think you let the sun shine in?

Yes.

Are you into horoscopes? Astrology?

Astrology of late? Yeah.

[Woman] Do you believe our signs are compatible?

Yes.

Have you ever looked up the signs

of your celebrity crushes to see if you were compatible?

No.

Is it true you were a drummer in the band, Comanechi?

Yes.

Would you say you're a better musician than this man?

[man laughs]

No. No.

I think he is really talented. He's a great musician.

What about this young man? Oh.

I am not more successful as a musician than this person.

Who would you say has influenced you as a drummer more,

Charlie Watts or Ringo Starr?

Ringo Starr, for sure.

King of groove.

What about [indistinct]?

Still Ringo Starr, but I liked how ferocious

and erratic he was.

I was probably closer drummer to this guy than Ringo.

Can you show me?

Show you? Yeah.

How?

[Woman] A little bit.

Tap. You do it all the time.

[table beating]

If you didn't wanna act anymore,

would you want to become a rock star?

If I didn't wanna act,

I don't think so. No.

I mean I don't miss it

and I used to do that like don't miss it.

But if I wasn't acting, I don't know what else I would do.

So maybe, yes, I would probably, I mean a rock,

like a big rockstar would be pretty fun.

So yeah.

Be honest.

Have you ever purposefully trashed a hotel room?

Not on purpose. But you have.

But I have. Okay.

Trashed is a strong word.

You're going to be in the movie The New Mutants,

is that right?

Mm-hm. Yeah.

[Woman] Are you nervous to join the Marvel universe?

No.

Do you think mutants exist in real life?

No.

If you had superpowers, which power would you wanna have?

Teleportation. What do you think my

superpower would be?

Yours? Yeah.

To be invisible. Interesting.

You play Jonathan Byers in Stranger Things, right?

Uh-huh.

[Woman] Are you a lot like your character?

No. Partly.

Yes and no.

These are hard.

These are hard strictly yes and no

because they all need an explanation.

Yes, I am in some ways and no, I'm not in other ways.

Okay. Do you think Nancy would be into you Charlie Heaton?

No.

Do you ever wish you had hair like this guy?

I don't even need to look at that. [laughs]

Yeah.

Yeah, he's got great.

He's got great hair. He's got the best hair.

Come on. Who wouldn't want a hair like this.

At any point during this interview,

did you lie and we didn't catch you?

I don't know.

I mean, I don't know if you caught me.

Did he lie? He's not lying.

Wow. Truth teller.

I guess you passed the test.

[gavel bangs]

You ready Natalia?

Yes.

Okay. Is your real name Natalia Dyer?

Yes.

Were you born in Nashville, Tennessee?

Yes.

[Charlie] Are you ready to take the lie detector test?

Not sure. I guess so.

Okay, all right if we get started.

Is it true you were born January 13th?

Yes.

As a child, did you have birthday parties

with leftover decorations from New Year's parties?

I don't think so. I hope not.

Do you remember- I mean, it's fine recycle,

but I don't think so.

Do you remember the best birthday present you were

ever given as a kid?

I had a Barbie Jeep.

I can't remember if that was a birthday thing

or if it was my sister's, but I drove it a lot.

I don't know, that's one option.

Growing up, did you always want to be an actor?

Yeah, I did. I liked it.

Did you ever wanna be anything else?

Yeah, I thought about it.

Writer or, yeah, something else.

Do you have a favorite TV show growing up?

Like what age are you talking?

Let's pick like 12-year-old Natalia.

12 year olds.

This is actually hard. I don't know.

I mean, I watched Disney Channel.

Did you have a celebrity crush?

Have you ever had a celebrity crush?

Yeah, I did, I did.

Well, who was your biggest celebrity crush? Make it that?

I think Orlando Bloom when I,

when Lord of the Rings was, I don't know.

We have the same birthday. It's faded.

Yeah.

Have you met them?

No. I have not.

Do you have a current celebrity crush?

Do you know who my childhood celebrity crush was?

I feel like I do.

I feel like maybe I don't.

Okay. [group laughing]

Okay. I'm gonna find one that's...

Your first role was in Hannah Montana, the movie, correct?

I mean my, like [indistinct] role I guess.

Were you more of a Miley fan or a Hanna fan?

Miley, I mean. Okay.

Gosh, that's a tough one.

Do you think it's possible to

have the best of both worlds?

[group laughing]

Sure. Yeah.

You graduated from NYU, correct?

I went there.

[Charlie] Do you think you are smarter than me

because you went to college?

No. I can spell better though.

[group laughing]

True.

Can you do your best New York impression accent?

No. [laughs]

I'll completely embarrass myself.

[Charlie] No.

I'll offend plenty of people, I'm sure.

You play Nancy Wheeler in Stranger Things,

is that right?

[Woman] Yes.

Did you watch a lot of scary movies

to get ready for the show?

I've watched some. Scary movies?

I mean, yes.

Do you enjoy scary things? No.

Be honest, did you watch Finn's movie [indistinct]?

No. I'm so sorry. No, I know

I can't. I'm very suggestible.

You play a Finn Wolfhard sister in the show, in real life

you have a sister, is that correct?

Yes.

[Charlie] Does she like Stranger Things?

I have two sisters.

I don't know if either of them have watched it.

Would you say you were cool sister than Nancy?

I dunno. Nancy's pretty cool.

You and I were cast around the same time, right?

[Woman] What?

You and I were cast around the same time, right?

Yeah.

[laughs] Do you remember your first impression of me?

Yes. What was it?

You're scared of bugs? [laughs]

Yeah, you're cool. You're a cool guy.

You're drummer in a band.

Oh man. [group laughing]

Is that first impressions still true?

You're cool. Of course you're a cool guy.

Did you lie at any time and that we didn't catch you?

I don't think so. Did she?

He's like, Hey, me too.

I didn't lie either. I also didn't lie.

Not a liar. I'm not a liar.

[gavel bangs]

It's time for your suffering to end.

Hi, I am Barry Gower and I'm gonna break down

how we created the creature prosthetics

for Stranger Things season 4.

[eerie music]

We were approached by the Duffer Brothers.

They were after their own iconic villain for this season

and they wanted him to be very practical.

And I think they'd seen our work

with the Night King on Game of Thrones

and they'd seen our work with the radiation burns

on the HBO's Chernobyl.

They said to us, we want our own iconic villain.

We need our Stranger Things version of the Night King.

Well, why don't we just approach the

guys that did the Night Kings?

We were given various concept art designs

by concept artist Michael Mayer, who did beautiful,

incredible designs for the Vecna character.

We were sent those designs

and then we took a full body life cast

of the actor Jamie Campbell Bower.

From that point we had quite a large extensive build

to actually create the character, which we started

with this full body life cast made outta plaster of Paris.

When you do any prosthetic makeup,

which involves appliances overlapping onto other appliances,

there's a process called floating.

The plaster cast of Jamie's body

we painted completely all over

with a soap product first and let that dry.

And then we sculpted Vecna over the top in

this wax modeling clay.

And then we needed

to separate the sculpture into many different parts

like a jigsaw puzzle and mold them separately.

But to separate them you need

to submerge the whole body under water

so the water sinks into the plaster Paris

and reactivates the soap.

So the plaster scene actually floats off the

surface of the plaster Paris.

This is the biggest thing we've ever tried

to float a sculpt off in our workshop.

So we bought this huge paddling pool,

put it in our workshop, and it took a day to fill with water

and we'd built this scaffold pipes kind of frame

that we could screw into the back of Jamie's body

and submerge him overnight for the soap to reactivate.

We just drilled all these holes into his back

so all the water can basically trickle out the body

and we'll stand him back up, get some little tools

and start separating the sculpture down into many,

many different pieces.

Make molds of those pieces

and inject them with different materials,

such as silicone, foam latex.

It's about 24 or 25 overlapping prosthetics,

which created the entire character of Vecna.

We decided to go down the approach

of doing a full body makeup as opposed to a pullover suit

because the character was going to be, he's gonna have

a lot of very intense strenuous kind

of movements in the show.

He was gonna be interacting with a lot of the main cast

and we wanted to avoid any kind of buckling

that you usually get with a rubber suit.

[dramatic music]

We wanted to adhere and glue all the appliances

to the actor's skin, which in the end ended up

with a process which started off at about eight

and a half hours for the whole application process.

Vecna's prosthetics they're made this combination

of two different materials.

We use a silicon medical gel, which is encapsulated

between a vinyl skin and it's incredibly soft

and you can change the density of the prosthetic,

to make it firmer or softer.

So we made the prosthetics very soft.

So when everything's adhered to Jamie's skin,

it moves very well it doesn't buckle.

We have a lot of stretch

and it kind of contracts very easily.

But due to that actual material,

it's quite weighty as well.

Probably looking at about 10 to 15 kilos

just in the head and shoulders.

Then he had a full chest appliance, a full back appliance.

The larger, heavier appliances were his left arm,

which was basically a large sleeve

and then a foam latex glove

that went over his mechanical left hands.

He had dentures which went over his own teeth,

which were like clear vac form plastic sort of shells,

which were artwork.

So his teeth looked rotten and blackened

and he had contact lenses as well,

full scleral contact lenses.

So we really put him through the mill.

There wasn't anything else we could get on Jamie.

Biggest challenges really were

to obviously make sure he could talk, he could eat,

he could see, he could hear.

He has got ear holes through the prosthetic there.

We had to make sure obviously that Vecna would be able to go

to the bathroom during the day as well.

So we devised a kind of a system which went

under his nether regions

that we could pop open and he could go to the loo

and obviously we wouldn't go with him.

You know, there are all these things you need

to take into consideration

that you've got human under there at the end of the day

and they still need to eat, still need to chat.

There's a lot of contributing factors that you have

to take into consideration when you're doing

a full body makeup.

But it got to the point that not only were our team

like a well old machine,

but Jamie knew exactly where his arm needed

to be at a certain time or turn his head

or, oh, I'm standing down and now I'm lying down.

For Jamie in particular, he did go into a zen-like mode.

We would start off with music every day and

because of the character, I think Jamie liked to listen

to some quite aggressive, quite intense death metal

and it would be quite hardcore.

There would definitely be a part during the process

where he would become Vecna.

He was kind of murmuring things under his breath

and you could tell he was definitely getting

into the Vecna zone.

I have [indistinct].

And it was just really interesting

'cause he'd be sitting there very still

moving his hand around.

We'd be airbrushing moving around him,

not really making much conversation.

He would be oh, basic sort of voice

and then an AD would step on the trailer.

And Jamie, Is there anything I can get?

Oh yeah, could I get a coffee with whatever?

And he'd suddenly sort of shift back into Jamie again

and we'd realized that we've got Jamie in the makeup chair.

[dramatic music]

It was very clear from day one

that we would be working very closely with the VFX team

and there would be some augmentation

to the finish of Vecna's look.

Most notably it was the moving vines all over his body.

So even though they took our physical makeup itself,

they used software and animation

to give all the vines a slight movements

and everything sort of slithered all over his body.

And they also removed Jamie's nose as well.

On each application day we had a black nose on Jamie

with some little white marking dots.

So VFX could remove that in post.

But in the end we ended up with a character which is about

90% practical.

[dramatic music]

I think one of the most challenging things

with the design was creating his large left hand

with his extended fingers.

So this was something that the production were quite keen

to us to achieve practically for the shoot.

So we created, it was mechanical left hand

with finger extensions,

which was covered in a foam latex prosthetic

that our actor Jamie wore.

He was sculpted by Pat Fode and Duncan Jarman.

And Pat was responsible for Vecna's left hand,

which the original design from Michael Mayer had Vecna

with really extended long fingers on the left hand.

The whole idea of Vecna killing his victims

by using his hand and sort of penetrating their skulls

and sucking their brains out as such.

We were doing tests back at the workshop in the UK

where we were using crew members and wearing the hand

and trying to show the Duffers,

'Oh, this is how it could potentially work.

They looked incredible when he was moving them,

but they almost became a little comical when he was trying

to sort of penetrate some fingers into the head.

So we actually reduced the length of the fingers,

probably by about four to six inches.

Jamie came over to the UK, came to our studio

and we have had a complete set of appliances,

but nothing was pre-painted.

It was all bare.

But he had the long finger extensions at this time.

We'd been wearing it ourselves in the workshop

and just making sure that the mechanics worked correctly

and we could only wear it for about five minutes or so.

And we were finding the strain on our fingers.

It was making our hands ache so much.

By the time he took the glove off

you could hardly move your hand 'cause you had cramps.

So we were thinking, this is gonna be really

interesting with Jamie.

Is this gonna work?

He's gonna be potentially be wearing

this for hours and on a shoot day.

And he came in, he did the test

and he wore this hand for like several hours, took it off.

He was absolutely fine.

It was like water off a duck's back with Jamie.

[dramatic music]

We looked at a lot of different color reference

for Vecna's skin tones for his vines.

We were given beautiful concept art from Michael Mayer.

That was the perfect springboard for us.

And the interesting thing is,

it's great having two dimensional or 3D art

but when you have to translate

that into physical prosthetic appliances,

we have to use different paints, different bases.

We always look at real life reference

for different skin tones.

So we looked at a lot of different sea life.

We looked at a lot of bruising on people who'd had

severe knocks to the skin,

lots of blues and greens and purples.

Because we had this overwhelming amount of reference

of different colors and what have you,

we had to really hone it in to only a few colors.

We actually had a makeup palette designed

by a company called Premier Products,

which had 10 different colors that we were able to use

as a base each day as well.

We'd only have one makeup palette

and we had 10 different colors.

So those are the colors that we used

for the entire Vecna paint scheme in the end.

[dramatic music]

Dear I survive.

So for Victor Creel,

his history was many years ago he had taken a razor blade

and gouged through his eyes.

The Duffers wanted quite an extreme makeup.

We had quite severe scarring going down the face,

but they also wanted a remnants of maybe a burst

but scarred eyeball as well on his right hand side.

So the difficult thing we're doing in makeup

of this nature is obviously you're covering an actor's eyes

and the first thing we would normally do is once we have a

cast of the actor, is we would dome the eyes

in front of the eyes.

They'd almost look like half golf balls

in front of the actor's eyes.

And then we would make a form of the face

with those on, sculpt the makeup over the top.

So when you have an appliance in the day

and you stick it to the actor's face,

there's actually a cavity inside.

So Robert was able to open his eyes

and look around inside the makeup.

We were incredibly lucky with this character

because we had Robert England,

who's an absolute season pro with prosthetics.

He's probably worn more prosthetics than any actor going,

I think.

For us this was like a dream come true.

I was a huge fan of Fangoria Magazine

and this is when I was starting to get into makeup effects

and I loved creatures.

And in my bedroom at home, at my mom's, I had my whole wall

above my bedroom was a shrine to Freddie Krueger.

And I just had all these posters.

So I actually get to work with Robert England.

Not only did we get to work on Stranger Things,

but to work with Robert England,

it's been like a dream come true.

And he couldn't have been nicer. This was the fun thing.

We doing a makeup on Robert.

He knew all the materials, he knew all the adhesives.

We would be sticking a piece down

and we'd be getting towards an edge

and he'd be like, I think you should be using some

Pros-Aide adhesive there on the edge.

Like yeah, we're literally just getting the Pros-Aide.

And he knew every little trick that we were doing.

He's so experienced with having so many makeup stuck on him.

It couldn't have gone any smoother with him.

We were very lucky.

So this is the sculpture of Victor Creele's appliance,

which you can see the difference in tone

where the appliance finishes just prior

to Robert's hairline goes around his temples

and down and round onto the face.

And even though we're basically only scarring

through his eyes, we make the appliance a little bit larger

and we chip the nose forward as well.

It comes over at the tip of his nose here.

We chip the cheekbones, we chip everything forward

because we've had to dome Robert's eyes out underneath.

So if we were literally just going to cover his eyes

and put scars through them,

it would look really, really bizarre.

So it's actually turned out being

quite an extensive appliance

and Robert's got this trademark,

great facial hair as well.

He's got this really beautiful beard.

So we had to make sure that we finished the appliance shy

of his beard line as well.

It was quite a big appliance to go in the face,

but it was all completely pre-art work.

We'd hair punched some eyebrows into the piece,

some eyelashes, which kind

of curled up a little bit the wrong way as well.

And we put some kind of gloss materials

onto the eyes themselves.

So it gave us this kind

of horrible mucusy feel to the eyelids.

Once it was glued onto the skin on the day,

we would just blend into the skin with an airbrush again

and spattering various colors onto Robert's skin.

Back to our process, I think on the day.

I think approaching a character like

Victor Creele is probably a lot more grounded

and it in a way easier for us

because we can look at a lot

of real scarring reference as well.

I mean, as prosthetic artists,

we look at some quite graphic material.

We look at a lot of facial scarring, lots of trauma,

lots of different victims who've got terrible scarring,

which sometimes we do very extensive burn makeup.

But for somebody like Victor Creele's makeup,

we did look at facial scarring going through eyes.

So we knew he was human,

but we had to make the appliance look very realistic

and he had to look very grounded as well.

It is a very different approach

because obviously Vecna is a fantastical creature.

It's supernatural, it's part of the Upside Down.

So we are using lots of reference of fantasy,

references from wildlife,

all kinds of different references.

There are two very different approaches.

I'm just a huge fan of effects,

whether it's practical or digital.

I think still to this day, you know, the work

by Rick on American Werewolf is still so significant

and is still the standard that we all aim

to be as good as.

There's also like Rob Bottin's work on John Carpenter's,

The Thing which is all practical effects

as well at the time.

Huge fans of these kind of early 80s movies,

which even by today's standard still

haven't quite been beaten.

[dramatic music]

[Woman] You have nothing to worry about as long

as you answer honestly.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this. So my job is to lie.

So it's like, it's been playing on my mind this

for a while and I'm really excited about it.

[gavel bangs]

So you're like a real one?

Yes, I was a detective for the District Attorney's office.

[Woman] Like, you know exactly what's going on.

I'm here 36 years already,

I can almost do it in my sleep.

So you're in good hands.

I hope so.

[upbeat music]

[Interviewer] To begin, I'm going to calibrate the machine

by asking you some straightforward questions.

Please answer honestly.

Is your full name Millie Bobby Brown?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Were you born on February 19th, 2004?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Are you about to take a polygraph exam?

Yes. Are you nervous?

I am.

[gavel bangs]

[Interviewer] All right, let's get started with your life.

Yeah.

[Interviewer] You were born in Marbella, Spain.

Do you speak Spanish?

No.

[Interviewer] You don't want to learn the language

of your birthplace?

I do.

I knew it when I was little, but I don't know it anymore.

[Interviewer] Do you think you do a good American accent?

I do.

She's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Do you ever judge the American accents

of other British actors?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Have any of your American co-stars

ever tried a British accent in front of you?

Yes. Who is the worst?

Hmm. Too broad of a question.

I feel as though all of them.

That's a lie.

[Interviewer] Who are you trying to protect, Millie?

Everyone.

[Interviewer] You and your siblings were homeschooled.

Were you a good student?

I was great.

[Interviewer] Did you ever cheat on a test?

Yes. She's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Did your parents ever find out?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Let's move on to your career.

[gavel bangs]

In Enola Holmes, Henry Cavill plays your brother,

Sherlock Holmes.

Is he a better Sherlock than this man, Benedict Cumberbatch?

Yes.

[Interviewer] What about this man, Robert Downey Jr?

In my personal opinion, yes.

She's telling the truth.

Oh my God.

[Interviewer] Who is a better detective?

Sherlock Holmes or this man Jim Hopper?

Shylock Holmes

[Man] Telling the truth.

[Interviewer] So you're saying Jim Hopper isn't

that good of a detective?

That's what I'm saying.

[Interviewer] How do you think David Harper's

gonna feel when he finds that out?

Probably just gonna drink coffee and contemplate.

[Interviewer] Have you ever gone to a party

and said, Let's crank this party to 11?

I haven't.

[Interviewer] Do you ever wish people would stop

making 11 jokes?

Every day?

[Interviewer] Are there any other numbers you'd want

to be associated with instead?

Eight. Why?

It's my favorite soccer team player. Steven Gerard.

[Interviewer] You're best friends with your co-star

Noah Schnapp.

Would a best friend let someone have this haircut?

Mm. He put himself in that position.

[Interviewer] Do you think the Duffer brothers

were out to get him?

Every day.

[Interviewer] Do you think he looks good?

[laughs] I love him. Yes, I do.

[Man] Answer the question, please.

Yes I do. I think, yes.

Sorry, I'm sorry. I do.

I think he looks great.

[Interviewer] In this haircut.

I do. Yeah.

That's a lie.

Get the picture outta here.

[Interviewer] In a 2019 YouTube video, you

and Noah claim the funniest thing that happened

to you was being stuck in a chair.

Mm.

[Interviewer] Who was stuck? You or Noah?

Noah.

[Interviewer] Why didn't you help your best friend?

I tried, but then I thought it'd be

funnier to Instagram Live it.

[Interviewer] Your Stranger Things co-star Maya Hawk

thought more characters should have died at

the end of season four.

Do you agree?

I do. Yeah.

[Interviewer] Who do you think should have died?

[woman scoffs]

Just tell the truth and you'll be fine.

I think that 11 should have died.

That's a lie.

I think that anyone other than 11 should have died.

We're getting closer to what she really thinks.

[Interviewer] So what do you think Millie?

I think if Maya thinks that maybe Robin.

[Interviewer] Do you think Robin should have died?

If that's what she'd like for her character.

[Interviewer] Do you think Eddie should have died?

Yes.

[Interviewer] You exclaimed Kissing sucks

after your first kiss with Finn Wolfhard.

Mm-hm.

[Interviewer] Is Finn just a lousy kisser?

He is.

She's telling the truth.

He's a lousy kisser.

[Interviewer] So he hasn't gotten better?

Not with me, no.

Have you told him this? No.

He's gonna find out. That's okay.

[Interviewer] Do you think Steve and Nancy

belong together?

No. Who should Nancy pick?

Jonathan. Why?

Because he's kind

and he might just need a little bit more time to

grow into himself as a man.

[Interviewer] You auditioned to be Lyanna Mormont

in Game of Thrones.

Mm-hm.

[Interviewer] What do you think of the

Game of Thrones finale?

I didn't watch it.

[Interviewer] Why, were you bitter?

No, I really wasn't.

[Interviewer] Are you watching House of Dragon?

I'm not.

[Interviewer] Millie, when you were 14 years old,

you said on a TikTok live

that you thought the earth was flat.

Hmm. Unfortunately, yes I did.

[Interviewer] Do you still believe this?

No.

[Man] Telling the truth.

Although I've never seen like the,

you know when you're on a plane sometimes you can see it.

The curve? I've not seen that yet.

You've seen satellite pictures, right?

I have. I have, yeah.

Okay. Thanks [indistinct].

[Interviewer] In 2018, you were featured in Times 100

of the world's most influential people.

Were you upset it wasn't the top 10?

[laughs] No.

That's not the truth.

Woo.

I didn't really know what it meant at that time.

[Interviewer] What do you think it means now?

A big deal. So you're a little upset?

Not currently, but maybe then.

[Interviewer] You have 58.7 million

followers on Instagram.

Mm-hm.

[Interviewer] Do you think that's too many?

No. She's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Final question.

At any point, did you lie

during this interview and we didn't catch you?

[upbeat music]

Yes. She's telling the truth.

I love you. [laughs]

[gavel bangs]

You guys could use this for like pure evil.

Like let's get a bunch of actors on a polygraph test.

All the debaucherous stories, the gossip

where you guys could find out.

Now I'm trying to get into your guys' heads. Is it working?

[gavel bangs] Lift hands up high.

Yep. Lean forward.

Good. Nothing hurts. Okay.

You're gonna feel a little pressure in your arm.

Great. That's about it. Okay?

Great. No pain.

I would hope not.

[upbeat music]

[Interviewer] To begin, I'm gonna ask you a few questions

to calibrate the machine.

Okay.

[Interviewer] Is your full name Finn Michael Wolfhard?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Are you worried about failing this test?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Do you feel like you has something to hide?

No.

[Man] He's telling the truth.

[gavel bangs]

[Interviewer] Starting with your personal life.

You were born in Vancouver, Canada,

but have spent much of your time in the United States.

Yes.

[Interviewer] Do you prefer Canadians or Americans?

Canadians.

I think there's like a general politeness in Canada

that you don't get sometimes in the States.

Like you don't get someone being like, Hey, fuck you.

Or whatever.

It's, which I've gotten in New York,

I think at least three times.

[Interviewer] So you hate New York?

No.

He's telling the truth. [indistinct]

You hear that? That's my boy right there.

[Interviewer] Do you think you're a nice person?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Would any of your co-stars agree?

I think so, yes. What about waiters?

Yeah, I think so. I would hope so.

I'm gonna get a comment that's like, he did not tip enough,

I'm sure, but I make sure that I tip.

I'm sure in my life I've messed up.

I've made mistakes in the past.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] You said you got your first acting job

off of Craigslist.

Mm-hm.

[Interviewer] Is Craigslist a good platform for children

to find employment?

No. I got lucky.

[Interviewer] So it's only okay if you do it?

Hmm. At that, yes.

Yeah, it is only okay if I do it.

I feel like I'm the Guinea pig.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] You're in a band called The Aubreys.

Mm-hm.

[Interviewer] Are you a better Aubrey than...

Oh no. Aubrey Graham?

No.

Look at this man. He's had a lot of hits.

You can't argue with the hits.

[Interviewer] Would you ever wanna collaborate

on a song with him?

I don't. I don't think so.

I really like Drake, but we make such different music.

Maybe if he wanted to do like an indie rock song,

then great.

Yeah, it'd be awesome.

[Interviewer] Is it also because you've been

on Twitter recently?

No. What's on Twitter?

What's going on Twitter?

Is there something going on with me and Drake on Twitter?

I'm gonna have to go on X by Twitter.

Am I telling the truth?

[Interviewer] You've talked about getting a tattoo

of your brother Nick's name.

Mm-hm.

Oh yeah. No, it's not my brother's name.

Here's the thing, my brother, I was getting a tattoo

and it's too sheep.

It's like a John Lennon painting.

Someone asked me like, are you getting the tattoo?

Like, does it represent anything?

And I was like, I guess if it represented anything,

I guess it would be my brother.

But that's not really the reason why I got a tattoo.

My brother took that and ran. Now it's true.

But at the time when I got it, it was not for my brother.

Do you want me to show it? It's a little wine drawing.

It's very good. Thank you.

[Interviewer] Does he plan on getting the same tattoo

or a tattoo dedicated to you?

I would hope so.

Now that I have one, I think he should get like,

you know how some people have like a caricature

of their child's face on their chest?

I would hope that he would get one of those.

He's lying.

Oh, come on.

These things are inconclusive, right?

Keep going.

[man laughs] [indistinct]

[Interviewer] Is it true that you've worn the same pair

of pants for a month before?

Absolutely.

[Interviewer] Do you not wash your clothes?

I do.

Jeans though, I feel like you can get away with

for a long time.

Right?

[Interviewer] Do you believe in personal hygiene?

Yes.

He's telling the truth.

I just said that because it's been like two

days since I've showered.

That's why I said that.

Was that bad?

Like two days is not bad.

[Interviewer] Moving on to your career.

[gavel banging]

You starred two recent Ghostbuster films.

Yes.

[Interviewer] Are they better than the originals?

No. He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Are they better than the

Star Wars sequel trilogy?

There was like a big discourse

around Ryan Johnson's movie.

I guess I loved that movie.

I think that movie is so good and underrated.

At least there was like a thing like let's take a swing

and try some new ideas.

So that's not, sorry, that's not an answer.

Do I find the Ghostbusters movies better than

the like the new trilogy?

Your Ghostbusters movies? My Ghostbusters movie? Yeah.

He's telling the truth. Ghostbusters are known

for not being afraid of no ghosts.

Mm-hm.

[Interviewer] Have you ever had a paranormal experience?

I did have a paranormal experience.

I thought- That's a lie.

Fuck.

Well I did, let me finish Judd.

What I thought was a paranormal experience ended

up being my dishwasher.

Like just the noise of my dishwasher.

It was a windy day, like in my head I was like,

doesn't wind mean like a lot of spirits are flying around.

And then I heard like a long guttural noise from my kitchen

that I thought was a ghost

but it ended up being my dishwasher.

[Interviewer] Do you believe in ghosts?

Not yet. No.

I haven't seen one.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Do you have to see to believe?

I think so. Yeah.

Dan Aykroyd has had many paranormal experience

and I fully believe him that he has seen these.

Telling the truth.

[Interviewer] You've been frequently cast in roles

set in the 80s.

Mm-hm.

[Interviewer] Do you think it was the best decade?

No. Cold War?

No thank you. Right Judd?

He is telling the truth, a hundred percent.

I was there in the 80s.

Yeah, I mean it was a more free time I'm sure,

I wasn't there

but I think it was like, you could ride your bike

around without your parents thinking

that like you'd go missing

or get murdered or anything like that.

[Interviewer] You directed and starred in the film

Hell of A Summer?

Yes.

[Interviewer] Are you a better director actor

than Bradley Cooper?

Bradley Cooper has much more experience than I.

So I think he's a better director.

Telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Are you a better director actor than,

John Krasinski?

Again, he has like, he's done like these big movies

so I don't think so.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Are you a better director actor than

Orson Welles?

Oh come on. He's like the greatest of all time.

Absolutely not.

Imagine if I said yes

that would be the most unlikable thing

I think that's ever been said on the show.

[Interviewer] Judd.

He's telling the truth. Open book.

[Interviewer] So a number of your Stranger Things,

co-stars have said more characters should have died

by the end of season four.

Do you agree with that?

Not by season four, I don't think.

[Interviewer] Do you not believe in consequences

for characters?

I do. I really do believe in consequences for characters.

There's been like family that have died like you know,

Max's brother and all that stuff,

but no like main character has died yet except for Eddie

and Barb and Bob and Mason.

Yeah. A lot more than Juan.

[Interviewer] Does anyone else die in season five?

I truly dunno.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] [sighs] Moving on to-

Are you put off? Are you put off by my answers?

[Interviewer] I'm not on the spot here.

I'm on the spot here. You're right.

[Interviewer] I think I should stick to asking questions.

Okay, okay, okay. I should stop being so insecure.

[Interviewer] Do you think you're an insecure person?

Yes.

He's lying.

Interesting.

I guess like I'm an anxious person.

I feel insecure in that way.

He's telling the truth there.

[Interviewer] Moving on to pop culture.

[gavel banging]

In 2020 you posted a picture

of your younger self playing football.

Yeah.

[Interviewer] And told the Seattle Seahawks you were

available if they needed you.

Did they ever call you?

Not for playing.

I think I would die.

I think I would actually die if I went on that field.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Do you normally send public thirst traps

to NFL teams?

Normally? I guess, yeah I did it then.

Inconclusive on that one.

Inconclusive.

[Interviewer] Who else would you like to reach out to?

Football wise? Sure

The Chiefs had a dynasty.

That's pretty cool.

But I'm a Seahawks fan through and through, so.

Judd? He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] You've expressed interest

in being in a Marvel film.

Yes. In the past, yes.

[Interviewer] Have you asked your Ghostbusters co-star

Paul Rudd to put in a good word for you

with the head of Marvel?

No.

[Interviewer] Is that because MCU films

have been mid recently?

Yes.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Do you believe the only way to fix it is

to cast you in their next film?

Do I believe that I would save the Marvel franchise

alone as an actor?

No.

He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] In 2023 you beat your

Stranger Things co-stars

for the Kids' Choice Award for favorite male TV star.

Do you think you were the correct choice to win?

Yeah.

[Interviewer] Do you brag about it to them?

No, I would if I got slimed.

It's an iconic thing to get slimed.

[Interviewer] Do you think you'd beat them

in any category?

Like running? Is that a category?

[Interviewer] Is that the category you want to choose?

Yes. Running.

I would choose running.

I think that I have an edge.

I think that I could beat Gaten or Caleb.

Caleb's very [indistinct].

Caleb on set in the last few months has

asked to race at least five times and I've said yes twice

and I've almost beat him twice and I think soon I will.

[Interviewer] Is this officially a moment you would

like to challenge Caleb?

Caleb, I will beat you.

You're gonna see this and you're gonna text me

and I'll have to commit now.

[Interviewer] You were once advised

that the minute acting is no longer fun, you have to stop.

Yes.

[Interviewer] Are you still having fun acting?

I am. Yeah.

[Interviewer] What would be the thing to make you stop?

If I was like truly unhappy acting, I think

that would be the thing that would make me stop.

Or if you know, if like directing really picked up

and I got to like direct all the time,

then that would be amazing.

[Interviewer] Do you think directing

is better than acting?

Yeah, I do.

Judd. He's telling the truth.

[Interviewer] Do you wanna be an EGOT?

That's Emmy, Grammy.

What's the O?

Oscar. Oscar.

Fuck. [laughs]

Oh that was really dumb.

And the T, what the hell is the T?

[Interviewer] Tony.

The Tony. I guess not.

If I forgot like the name of the Oscars.

It'd be cool to win an Oscar.

I don't know if if I should win the EGOT.

I don't think I should win the EGOT.

He's telling the truth. Final question.

Okay.

[Interviewer] At any point did you lie

during this interview and we didn't catch you?

No.

[gavel banging]

Millie Bobby Brown. Let's go.

Scene selection.

Hello everyone, I'm Millie Bobby Brown

and I'm gonna be taking a look back on some of my scenes

during my career thus far.

So let's do it.

[upbeat music]

[boy thuds]

Ah, she broke my arm. My arm.

Go

[laughs] Go. [laughs]

Oh this is the, I don't even remember it.

I never really watched season one.

I didn't really have time.

The second it came out,

we just went on press tours and interviews

and now we're able to kind of relish in it more

and really enjoy the show.

It's so cloudy.

The memories you don't really remember like the

specifics of everything.

I did not think this would be big at all

and I actually still didn't,

like after like we performed at the Emmys

and went on Ellen, I was just like,

It's gonna go up and it's gonna go down.

Like I didn't know and then I was just like,

Oh, I got up and I'm like staying consistent.

And I'm able to continue doing really great things.

But like I'm 10 so immediately I'm like, I just want a puppy

You know, that's really all that I was thinking.

Let's go go get it right.

Let's go. Go.

Yeah, that's right. You better run!

She's our friend and she's crazy.

[laughs] I love that line. That is my favorite line.

Also I think my friends actually say this about me.

They're like, She's our friend and she's crazy.

Gaten's performance in this makes me so happy. Ugh.

The energy he brought,

it was just like magnetic in the screen.

[eerie music]

Ugh, the void. The most depressing place ever.

I'm always alone,

I'm always having to be emotional and scared.

I'm in water, my feet are pruny, I'm hungry.

It's just, it's my least favorite set ever. [laughs]

Mike, I'm sorry.

Sorry, what are you sorry for?

The gate.

Girl, she needs braces. You see those teeth?

I opened it.

I think this is probably the most I've spoke

in the whole of season one.

I remember being like, I have lines today.

Like this is so fun.

And I remember how cold it was

and I remember actually laying on that gravel.

I remember I was studying Mesopotamia

and the Fertile Crescent

and all the boys were a few grades older than me

but they were like, we know about Mesopotamia

and I was like, okay, I hate myself.

But yeah, I remember having to go back into school

and doing like four hours of school in

between these like really emotional scenes.

So we had two jobs.

[somber music]

This is such an iconic scene

because you start to go, Oh Mike and 11,

like they might be falling in love

and there's Dustin, you know, it's just like very,

very cute the friendship that they have

and I think this is the beginning

of the wonderful friendship between the boys and 11.

I'm Kyle Dixon.

And I'm Michael Stein.

We do music, we've done a show called Stranger Things.

We're gonna talk a little bit about what we do

and how we do it.

[dramatic music]

When we were first approached to do the music

for Stranger Things, it was a very exciting random email

from the directors just kind

of telling us they liked the music of our band.

They had been using it in a mock trailer for the show.

They sent us the trailer that had one

of our songs called Dirge.

It's the last track on our first LP.

And they decided who was gonna do the score

to this TV show we're gonna work on, let's ask these guys

who we're using their music currently.

Basically they just wanted to know if we had any interest in

being a part of a sci-fi drama with Winona Ryder on Netflix.

We wrote them back saying of course

we're interested in doing this.

Here's a bunch of music.

When you make stuff conceptually for like a library

or just stuff that you think sounds cinematic,

actually seeing that stuff fit to picture

almost all the music we submitted from the library

is not stuff that crossed over being able

to be used in the show.

The things that are effective in score are generally

a lot different than a pop song.

And I'm using the term pop song like pretty loosely.

Structured, this mini bars A, B, A B, C,

which is not how score is.

Score is like woo, what is this thing? [indistinct]

And then it's like, oh no it's like cute.

And then it's like this music's super weird.

It's almost like it's some form of abstract-

Schizophrenia, yeah, but it works to picture.

We have tons of influences.

I mean we, we grew up listening to Aphex Twin, Autechre

and Bogdan Raczynski, all the experimental side

of pop electronic stuff.

I probably watched Big Trouble in Little China

a hundred thousand times.

The Keep, which Tangerine Dream did the score at its

early Michael Man film.

The music in that movie is incredible.

EX Machina was really cool. Same with Annihilation.

I don't think as an artist you can try to ignore

or act like you're not influenced by stuff,

but all art takes things and you absorb and adapt it

and it becomes some new thing.

Everything evolves from things you've experienced.

When we approach music, we obviously have all the influences

and inspirations, but you get in the studio

and you experiment and that's where we come from.

So it's always about finding new things

and that's what keeps me excited.

It's very fun to make your own sounds

and in doing that you're going to create something

that's more unique to yourself.

When you're using things like modular synth, it's even hard

for you to recreate the same sound twice.

So in that way it's unique even to that specific session.

[upbeat music]

Season one allowed us to approach some of the horror,

like the mysterious scenes where like Nancy's going to look

for Barb out in the woods

and there's these cooler, experimental, ambient pieces

of music I just think are are really unique.

The Jump scare sound

[dramatic music]

was actually a combination

of a broken piano we recorded on a field recorder

the first time we visited the set.

[eerie music]

When Mike and Dustin are being chased to the quarry

by the bullies and then 11 saves them is one

of the themes from season one

that got reused and reinterpreted.

[dramatic music]

This actually got reused when Joyce was

axing through the wall.

[wall breaking]

The end of episode eight.

It starts when 11 comes back

and then goes through the credits

and kind of plays out the more epic version of that.

[dramatic music]

We defined like a handful

of themes early on in Stranger Things

'cause there's definitely different little worlds that exist

and there's different characters.

So there's some specific themes

and then just kind of general moods

and sonic soundscapes that represent different parts

of the show that creates rules

and boundaries you can work within.

One of the challenges for us was to figure out

how we were gonna do action music in our own way.

[dramatic music]

We did that with the use of just kind

of atonal percussive elements with like a brooding kind

of base underneath it.

[eerie music]

Steve!

Steve, abort!

Abort!

When Steve is trying to lure the demo dogs.

It goes through just a lot of like ambient kind

of eerie suspenseful stuff.

[eerie music]

It will build you a big rise

and then drop in, like have a jump scare

[eerie music]

'cause of the action, the higher energy stuff.

We got to revisit a little more of the themes of

where we come from with the band stuff with drums.

[dramatic music]

Just these bigger, more epic pieces that are driving.

[dramatic music]

We've made music in just about every way

that you could possibly make music.

We've made music together,

we've made entire pieces separately.

We've started- Swapped sessions.

An idea, sent it over to him,

had him work on it, send it back to me.

We've done the back and forth thing.

Yeah. We've done just about

every combination of collaboration that exists.

We're fortunate we've been working together so long

that basically we're able to create music

that we know could come from either of us.

That's pretty good stalker.

[upbeat music]

So this is my workspace with most of my equipment.

I guess you guys wanted to know a bit about the theme song.

[dramatic music]

Misconception, everyone thinks that the little arpeggio

was written on a Juno, which I don't even own.

And it wasn't an arpeggio, it was played by hand.

[Man] And it was this guy.

That's doing the main sequence.

[dramatic music]

This is where played the bass line,

the SH2, very good aggressive kind of baseline.

[dramatic music]

Doing a little self resonating filter.

The heartbeat, the like thump, dump, dump.

[dramatic music]

[indistinct] five is in there doing some kind

of a like a little pad, a little piano kind of tone.

Tape echo is like all over everything.

We love tape echo.

There is 2,600 doing a lot of sound effects.

The day that he bought that synthesizer,

he brought it over to my house,

like let's make a big drum sound.

So we did that and then we had that recording way

before Stranger Things was happening

and then it ended up making it into the score

and we ended up recreating it to make it fit with the...

Yeah Scene.

But it's funny that literally the first thing ever recorded

once he bought that made it into the soundtrack.

The monster, like the upside down.

[indistinct]

[man vocalizing]

That was actually just sequenced on one

of these like step sequencers.

The notes are weird because it's analog

so you can fine tune like between notes.

It's kind of hard- Stuff you couldn't play

on the keys because the tuning is microtonal.

[dramatic music]

I don't understand. Hiding.

This one has this piece of tape on it

because that had the monster theme on it.

I was scared to change the knobs so I put this piece

of tape on it and it didn't touch it for like a year,

which sucks because-

[Man] It's a really good thing to use

Because I want to use it.

It's a really good thing to use.

[dramatic music]

When scary things are happening

there's like kind of like a big [vocalizes],

like a big kind of tuba sounding hit and that's the 2,600.

[dramatic music]

If you're making music or doing any kind of art or whatever

and you're enjoying it, just keep doing it

because we were in band for like 10 years.

We didn't expect anything to happen.

We're gonna keep making music anyway

because we like doing it.

And then one day we got this random email

that changed our lives completely.

So if you like something and it makes you happy,

somebody else probably does too.

They just need to find it.

This is notes on a scene. My name's Christina Graff.

And I'm Paul Graff

and we led the visual effects team

of Stranger Things season two.

You remember me? Alright will you let us pass?

[monster growls]

Okay, okay, I'm sorry.

And then the climax of chapter nine.

There's like three storylines that converge

and they're all visual effects storylines.

The section that we'll cover is primarily underground.

There's interconnected passageways

and in these tunnels the demo dogs are living.

Okay, so here, here we're in this four chamber.

It's like a big circular place and we'll just ran into Dart

and that Dart here on the side.

And actually on the day we had just a plastic head

on a broomstick and I was operating the plastic head.

So we have an eye line here, they have something to look at.

Dustin pulled out his new gut

and his love for this animal is paying off

and saves everybody's life.

The demo dogs, they have five different stages.

The first stage is about the size of a large tadpole,

the second is about the size of a nice frog or toad,

and the third is about the size of a cat

and the fourth is about the size of a dog.

We are going like from cute here

and then we go like right here we go, this scary.

The thing is, it's kind of difficult to be cute

with these animals because they,

if anybody has ever noticed, they don't have eyes

and we still like, they have to convey their emotions

and reactions just with body language.

And so that was really important to the Duffers and to us.

If you go to chapter three

and chapter four, there's like a whole evolution

of this little cute Dart animal

and we kind of don't want to give away right away

that it's a Demogorgon.

And of course the thing where you would see

that is when the mouth opens.

So it doesn't have a petal mouse until it gets

to stage three.

And stage three is when he eats the cat

because we have to communicate this to the kids so

they know what they're actually looking like.

Dustin was really excited about it,

like how these creatures look and how they're move.

So everybody knew, oh, they're gonna be really cute

and they're gonna look really good,

but on the day we don't have those.

So I figured why don't we just 3D print those.

First of all, it was like something tactile.

They could actually see what the weight

of a Demogorgon would be in their hands.

What we did is we took always one of

our puppets into the first take

and then eventually we'd take everything out

and say, we just play it just completely without,

unless it's something that's, without really handling it

and it being interactive like Gaten

with putting the poly wonk under his head.

[dramatic music]

There's these snowy particles

that you always find in the Upside Down

and they're called spores

because we think that they're like seeding like

the Upside Down world and the Upside Down plants.

You don't just get to put like some random things in here

and just not have them art directed.

I can say like pretty much every shot spores have been

treated with a lot of love to like the way they are moving

to the depths of field.

Like they need to sit right in the shot.

And then there is like, sometimes there's ones

that just curl right by the lens,

but they never want to be too much in your face

or too little.

Like it's just a sort of like a balance. It has to be found.

And so I can say I'm very proud of the spores of season two.

They react to flashlights as like all kinds of funky stuff

that's going on with these spores.

They are randomly generated.

So you'll have some spores that misbehave

and do something stupid like they spin really fast

or they run just right over the nose

of somebody when it's in emotional moment

and they're like 99% cg.

What happens is there's basically a cutout,

it's called rotoscope and you'll have to rotoscope

each object or creature that's in the foreground

and lots of times you'll have

to do things in the background too to create depth so

that you can add spores in 3D space and Z space.

Yeah. Throughout the scene.

And you'll add atmosphere-

And they can like flow around, you know,

they do like funky stuff and they react.

They're not just like a sort of a snow pass

that's overlaid of everything.

They're actually in 3D space

and when the camera racks, it racks in the spore space.

[dramatic music]

[monster growls]

The tunnels were designed as kind of like a cross breed

between production design and visual effects.

Can't really move a camera inside of these tunnels

because they have all of these ridges and rifts

and you can hardly walk in them,

but you can definitely not do a dolly shot or something.

So as they turn around, the dogs come around the corner,

they're looking at the dogs

and then they turn around as the dogs run towards camera.

There was no tunnel, there was just like basically

the tunnel behind them

and then we just like filled in the rest

of the tunnel in the foreground.

T[Woman] his was the end. So, you know, and-

Yeah, and then there were little lights.

Extends out Around it so we can track it

and we know where the edge is.

And then we basically do a digital tunnel extension

on top of it.

[dramatic music]

This is the climax,

basically the climax of the entire season two.

While the visual effects in Stranger Things are not really

the main attraction, we could do a bad job

and really hurt the show, you know.

And what have here is we have this kind

of shark cage elevator that they're going down in

this place that's called the rift chamber.

And that's actually the only set that doesn't exist.

This yellow outline is the only practical thing

on that set plus obviously the-

Yeah, so it's basically an empty room

and then inside of this empty room you have like

three blue screens, big panels with wheels at the bottom.

So you can run them around.

There's another one here

and then we have some light sources.

It's red and and yellow. So let's use yellow.

So basically then we have like light hitting them

from different places and different intensities and wind.

We would have some propellers, right? And that's really it.

That's it. That's all we had.

[wind gushing]

This skin is what we call the riff membrane.

We have a couple of things that are flying around

and then you have all the wind and the atmosphere

and how does that interact with each other.

And then behind this you have the shadow man,

which again is like its own entity,

but they all have to speak to each other.

It all has to sit in the same scene.

[gun firing]

Oh shit.

[gun firing]

The cage needed to shake a lot once those demo dogs were

jumping on top of the cage.

There needed to be some sort of instability

like underneath it

'cause it's something heavy has just landed.

Yeah, we thought maybe we'll have

somebody jump on the roof of the cage,

but first that he wasn't too excited it.

[group laughing]

And. Didn't happen.

And so instead we had somebody

below the cage just rattling it as the,

because it's a box so it doesn't matter where it comes from.

So we had like somebody stand below the cage

and jerk it real hard when the dog lands.

When 11 kills the Demogorgon the very end of season one,

he kind of turns into this cloud of ashy particles.

And so at the very beginning when we were talking about

the [indistinct] they were like, what if it's made out

of these kind of ashy particles, right?

Maybe we just take that theme

and just like develop it into the next round

and like what do we have

and that's kind of like our ashy particles and electric

and big and black and we have tornadoes

and we have like big storms and volcanic eruptions

and like, that's what was kind of like the source material

for this monster.

[light fusing]

So what you have here is shadow monster comes out

swirling, it's a particle system.

So it's basically just a bunch

of particles swirling around.

She basically builds a shield

and it just spreads everything out sideways.

She just pushes back

and while she's hitting this, she's already airborne

and floating and she's actually hanging off

of a wire rig.

She's not connected with the cage.

Well you can see that her eyes are

looking like a little odd.

They're really black and really big.

And so that's digitally done.

And then there's veins forming like here,

all of these little guys forming under her skin

and around her eyes it was digital makeup.

And basically you start with like putting just a bunch

of dots around your face so you know how it's moving

and you can attach something to her face.

Tracking marker.

We had like different iterations

of like really intense and less intense

and we wanted her obviously to still be 11,

like not like find a nice balance

between her turning into being in a very extreme state

and turning into a monster.

We didn't want her to look like a monster.

So it was like a little bit of like dialing in,

dialing forward and dialing back a little bit.

And this is the result

that we all felt really excited about.

[light zapping] [upbeat music]