Stranger Things is bonafide phenomenon, and its charming young cast became stars, seemingly
overnight.
Even though their careers are even younger than they are, there are still some fascinating
factoids about each of the Netflix hit's kids.
Like his onscreen alter ego Dustin Henderson, Gaten Matarazzo really does live with a rare
bone disorder called cleidocranial dysplasia.
While he’s said he has a relatively mild case, he’s never developed collarbones or
permanent teeth.
Matt and Ross Duffer, co-creators of the hit series, decided to write that detail into
the show after meeting Matarazzo, and the young actor credits them with giving him a
platform from which to raise awareness for his condition.
“I told you a million times my teeth are coming in, it's called cleidocranial dysplasia!”
Before the Duffer Brothers cast Matarazzo, though, he had a tough time getting considered
for Hollywood roles as a result of his condition.
He did previously have some luck on Broadway, however, and he also had a bit role on TV's
The Blacklist in 2015.
Still, Stranger Things was the first full series to give him a shot at stardom.
Some kids are just born to be a part of the biz.
Finn Wolfhard inherited the entertainment bug from his father, an aspiring screenwriter.
And while his dad helped him develop an early interest in movies, he's now trying to use
his own newfound influence to give his old man an "in."
Thanks to Finn’s role in Stranger Things and the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s
It, he’s been able to use his increased pop culture profile to make connections along
with his old man, which was one of the reasons he got into acting in the first place.
Aside from the It sequel, Finn landed a role in the adaptation of the bestselling novel
The Goldfinch and joined the voice cast of 2019's animated Addams Family movie.
On the show, Eleven is a young woman of few words, but in real life, Millie Bobby Brown
has no trouble expressing herself with her voice.
Before she was Eleven, the British actress had plenty of videos on her Youtube channel,
singing covers of Amy Winehouse, Adele, and more.
It almost makes you hope that Stranger Things Season 3 throws in a full-on musical episode.
It's her impressive acting chops, though, that have people excited about her breakthrough
performance as the telekinetic superheroine of the series.
After shearing off her locks to play Eleven, she’s definitely a star on the rise.
At 13, she’s already been nominated for two Emmy Awards, and she’s got a starring
role in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Caleb McLaughlin got his start playing Young Simba in Broadway's run of The Lion King around
the same time Gaten Matarazzo was on stage in Les Mis.
The pair knew each other before Stranger Things, and McLaughlin, like Matarazzo, can act, sing,
and dance, and even studied at the Harlem School of the Arts.
"Look, if you want to waste your time looking for a traitor go ahead.
because I'm not spending my time on her anymore!
No Way!"
While Stranger Things brought him to a new worldwide audience, he hasn’t forgotten
how he got his start, telling Entertainment Weekly that he and Matarazzo were constantly
singing familiar show tunes during their downtime on the shoot.
Steve Harrington went from a bit of a jerk to a fan-favorite character over Stranger
Things’ two seasons, and Joe Keery can thank his real-life niceness for inspiring a complete
overhaul of his character.
His most likeable moment might not have come from the show, though, and instead resulted
from Steve's visual similarity to a character in the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation.
Given their shared flair for big hair and similar facial features, Stranger Things viewers
couldn't help but sense a connection between Keery and Parks and Rec's Jean-Ralphio, played
by Ben Schwartz.
The two actors embraced the gag, and even made a viral video confirming that Steve is
Jean-Ralphio's secret father.
“you’re my father.
you’re my father.”
"What'd you just say?"
“you’re my father”
"Guys?"
“son”
While he was a major part of the second season, Will Byers spent most of the first part of
Stranger Things stuck in the Upside Down.
“Hello?
Hello?”
If that left you feeling like you were missing out on seeing Noah Schnapp be menaced by evil
forces, don’t worry.
He was featured in Panic!
At the Disco’s music video for “LA Devotee,” which featured him tethered to a chair by
a Satanic cult.
It probably goes without saying that this video was conveniently released right on the
heels of Stranger Things, and is probably just the first in a long line of projects
following in the wake of his breakout performance.
Natalia Dyer literally fell into acting when she was a child.
After spraining her ankle on the first day of sports camp, her parents decided to put
her into a less physical program, and she wound up studying drama instead.
As a result, when she landed the role of the lovable Nancy Wheeler, she’d already been
in the business for quite a few years, making her on-screen debut way back in 2009 with
Hannah Montana: The Movie.
She’s also been studying language at NYU, but had to put her studies on hold due to
conflicts with filming her hit show, which is a pretty good problem for a student to
have.
Before her ill-fated character Barb inspired some of 2016's most memorable memes, Shannon
Purser was working at a movie theater.
Once the internet blew up with its demands for "Justice for Barb," though, Purser decided
to quit her day job and give the biz a real shot… and the Barb frenzy was responsible
for that in more ways than one.
“Are you sick of that yet?”
"A little bit, my mom called me Barb once and uh that's when I knew it had gone a little
too far."
She told Glamour she actually had to let go of her gig at the theater once her newfound
fanbase started showing up at her job.
However it happened, Stranger Things launched Purser into plenty of roles, including a recurring
part as Ethel Muggs in Riverdale and the lead role in the 2018 Netflix film Sierra Burgess
Is a Loser.
If you thought Jonathan Byers seemed to have a lyrical soul, you know, whenever he wasn't
taking creepy pictures of Nancy, it's because in addition to acting, he's also a musician.
He played drums for Brit noise band Comanechi until 2014, when they concluded an 18-month
world tour and called it quits.
It was his sister who first prompted him to pursue acting, and his first gig was an eight-minute
advertisement for a Swiss insurance company complete with a full storyline.
Heaton wasn't so lucky in October of 2017, when he missed the Season 2 premiere party
after being detained at Los Angeles International Airport.
Security examined his belongings and detected a "very small amount" of a substance later
determined to be cocaine.
Heaton ended up being sent back to the U.K., a gaffe for which he apologized in a public
statement days later.
Joining our Hawkins heroes in the second season is another young lady with a supreme set of
skills, although hers have nothing to do with telekinesis.
Max, a transplant from California, owns the high score on Dig Dug at the local arcade
under her pseudonym "Mad Max," and even though some members of the group are a little more
reluctant than others to include her, she eventually joins up with her prodigious skateboard
skills.
“And plus, she skateboards so she's pretty awesome”
"Awesome?
You haven't even spoken a word to her!"
The actress behind all that sass, Sadie Sink, grew close to Millie Bobby Brown on the set
of Stranger Things 2, despite the fact that their characters share very little screen
time.
The two enjoyed slumber parties together, dueted on pop music covers, and spent downtime
from the shoot together.
But despite how close the pair grew behind the scenes, Sink reportedly took a lot of
social media heat from fans who were afraid Max might drive a wedge between Eleven and
Mike, which might have helped prepare her for the controversy that erupted after she
revealed that her kiss with Caleb McLaughlin toward the end of the second season was an
unscripted surprise.
There's a reason Priah Ferguson was promoted to a recurring character between Stranger
Things' second and third seasons: her portrayal of Lucas Sinclair's sassy little sister made
her an instant favorite during her brief time in the series' sophomore run, as fans delighted
in her unbridled passion for syrup and sharp demeanor.
Behind the scenes, Ferguson is just as intriguing.
Although her young career started to flourish once she landed her role in the Netflix sci-fi
series her backup career plan is also pretty impressive.
If acting doesn’t work out, she has plans on becoming a surgeon.
Ferguson's other ambition is to be a philanthropist, and she's already well on her way.
In 2015, the Georgia native landed a spokesmodeling gig with United Way, and hopes to help the
homeless.
Although she didn't start acting until her late teens, Season 3 addition Maya Hawke has
been a part of Hollywood since the day she was born.
Hawke is the eldest child of actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman.
After spending her childhood visiting the sets where her parents worked, she said she
finds acting to be as natural as breathing.
Hawke, who struggled in school early on thanks to her diagnosed dyslexia, earned a breakthrough
role as Jo March in the PBS adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, a role that
was so important to her that Hawke was willing to quit her studies at Juilliard to take it.
Before becoming the well-liked lifeguard Heather in Hawkins, Indiana, Francesca Reale starred
in another big Netflix series: Haters Back Off!
To get that role and her part in Stranger Things, though, the NYU grad had to first
qualify for her Screen Actors Guild card.
That meant having to start small, including a bit part on Blue Bloods where she “laid
in a pile of dirt” as a dead body.
That hasn’t stopped her from dreaming big.
Citing Audrey Hepburn as her ultimate Hollywood inspiration, she has aspirations to eventually
take her television successes to the silver screen, and she's already well on her way.
For her feature film debut, she was cast alongside Stranger Things castmate Natalia Dyer in Karen
Maine's full-length adaptation of her short film Yes, God, Yes.
Last but not least, we have Billy, your prototypical mean teen with a mullet, no shirt, and zero
respect for speed limits.
He looks like a cross between Rob Lowe in St. Elmo's Fire and Jason Patric in The Lost
Boys, but with fewer redeemable inner qualities.
In real life, Dacre Montgomery is hardly the depraved character he portrays on the show.
The Australia native spends his downtime making music videos, and before Stranger Things,
he starred as Jason Scott, the Red Ranger in 2017's big-screen Power Rangers movie.
In that film, he’s as easy to like as Billy is to hate, which shows some pretty impressive
range, and probably came as a surprise to plenty of Mighty Morphin fans who followed
him to Hawkins.
His initial audition for Stranger Things consisted of one very thematically on-point mini-film
he made for the Duffer Brothers, in which he, quote, “may or may not have put on a
g-string and danced to 'Hungry Like a Wolf.'"
Nabbing the role was what made him decide to move to the U.S. to pursue his budding
screen career once and for all.