10 Actors Who Auditioned For Stranger Things But Were Rejected

hi my name is i'm 13 years old i'm noah schnapp i'm 10 years old my name is emily brown i'm 11 years old i'm finn wolfhard i'm sick my name is kate matarazzo and i'm 12 years old the journey to casting stranger things was a long one but thousands of auditions later the duffer brothers were able to land on the iconic cast we know today however that doesn't mean that the cast landed the part they originally wanted in fact a lot of actors including the og stranger things cast were at first rejected ready to find out why we'll have to see skyler gartner's experience auditioning for stranger things is the definition of everything happens for a reason the young actor says he auditioned for not one but two characters in stranger things he never mentioned what parts they were but we're going to take a wild guess and say will and mike but skyler never heard back from the casting director and moved on the stranger things rejection was a blessing in disguise because without it he wouldn't have auditioned and landed his huge role in another hit show ozark chaos never stops the stranger things auditions even reached as far as broadway where stage star eli tokash took a shot at getting a place in the upside down he spoke about his audition with stranger things season 3 actor gabriela pizzolo on his podcast saying although he did send in a tape he never got a call back this just goes to show just how selective the duffer brothers were with the casting of the series hi i'm noah schnapp and i play will byers at this point imagining anyone else but finn wolfhard playing mike is impossible but at one point the duffer brothers did have to do this with noah schnapp yup noah originally auditioned for mike instead of will when he sent in his audition tape he was obviously rejected for the part of mike but got a call while at camp from the production team letting him know they wanted to cast him as will i actually auditioned for mike first then they called me back for will we're not sure noah even realized he was offered a different part at that point according to the actor he had auditioned for so many jobs he couldn't place what role he had just landed i was like oh my god wait so this is like this is my first tv show joe kiri was looking to play a more relaxed character than the one he ended up portraying when he first sent in an audition tape it was for jonathan byers basically the complete opposite of steve harrington after not getting a call back he assumed he just didn't get the role he was right but they still called and asked if he would consider sending in a tape for steve instead i said yeah although joe remembers thinking how much of a total jerk steve was he sent in the tape and the rest is history at least in the end joe did get to experience steve's character development and got the best of both worlds by playing jerk steve and nice steve they don't tell you about that when they cast you being an established actor the duffer brothers were a little taken back when they received an audition tape from sean astin usually actors like shawn are offered the part or an audition instead of just sending in a tape but sean was just such a huge fan of the show that he wanted to be a part of it in any way he could casting older and more experienced actors it's a big responsibility the tape he sent in was originally for a journalist named murray bowman who would only be featured in four season two episodes however the duffer brothers thought his fame would be a little too distracting for the role and had to reject him but that wasn't without them calling shawn and offering him the part of bob newby instead i'm newbie superhero in a way even the duffer brothers had to audition and face rejection before they were given an opportunity to shine they went through almost 20 networks until netflix finally lit the match on their projects apparently others were having a hard time grasping whether stranger things was for adults or children isn't that the beauty of it it's not meant for one group and not the other i mean it's kind of a it's meant for everybody once they were cast themselves they went on to audition 907 boys and 307 girls for the roles of the hawkins gang the entire audition process consisted of the actors reading lines from the stranger things season 1 script and lines from the movie stand by me which was a major inspiration for the brothers but not every audition was that straightforward earlier we spoke about some of the actors who were rejected from a role on the show but there are some members of the stranger things cast who got the part in the end but had to go as far as lying to be cast and were very nearly rejected in the process it's very kind of unique directing this young cat i love it believe it or not the duffer brothers didn't automatically think of winona ryder as their first choice for joyce they were really vying on casting huge adult stars to draw in a variety of audience members and were looking at both naomi watts and marissa tomei instead however in the end winona's electric energy won out the duffer brothers admitted that they considered her an option after realizing how much they missed seeing her on the big screen as you probably suspected winona didn't have a traditional audition instead they invited her to have tea and a chat with the production unit we sat for hours having tea with winona and we came away from those interactions with certainty that we've found our hopper and our joists apparently sitting across from winona gave off the vibe and atmosphere they were looking for in their perfect choice if you can't handle this then just turn around and drop me up first david harbour wasn't anywhere on the duffer brothers radar in the early stages of casting for stranger things in fact there were two actors ahead of him on the list that the brothers had their eye out for just like winona because stranger things was originally meant to be a limited series the casting department wanted to try to utilize the star power of either ewan mcgregor or sam rockwell to draw in adult audiences but casting director carmen cuba wasn't having that she pushed and pushed for david and when it was decided that netflix wouldn't be a limited series and the duffer brothers saw his audition tape they knew that he would be the perfect fit for the scruffy fun-loving sheriff they had created carmen i'll give her full credit because she just kept going i think david harbor ewan mcgregor had nothing on david harbor by the end of it yes i think it worked sadie started off as just another fan of the show before she landed her audition for stranger things but the young actress went to long lengths that almost had a catastrophic end just to land the role of max after binge watching season 1 of the series and becoming obsessed she asked her agent to get her an audition and a week later she was standing in the audition room in front of the casting directors however before the interview she had told them that she was an avid rollerblader which turned bad fast i was doing some scenes and all of a sudden i look into the corner of the room and see a pair of rollerblades i'm like holy crap they're going to make me rollerblade i kept thinking oh no oh no luckily they didn't make her rollerblade and she landed the role but she did have to face the consequences of actually learning how to rollerblade before filming started it turned out great they needed a certain type of personality to be able to portray billy with all of his emotionally charged scenes and snarky attitude stranger things couldn't cast just anyone that's why it isn't exactly a surprise how different daker montgomery's audition tape was while it starts out fairly normal with him reading lines and giving it his all he ends the audition by dancing shirtless with a pair of sunglasses to the song come on eileen an 80s staple while in hindsight it may seem a little odd it's very on par for billy's character and it landed him the role it just goes to show what kind of effort needed to be put into these auditions in order to actually land a role on the hit netflix series kind of went all out um but i believe in taking risks getting rejected isn't fun but if the experience of these actors can teach us anything it's that sometimes getting rejected leads us to something even greater without joe kiri getting rejected we wouldn't have the sassy steve harrington we all love so much what audition story is your favorite thanks for watching

Channel: TheThings

Views: 9,571,419

Keywords: Stranger things season 4, netflix series, noah schnapp, stranger things casting

Id: Bdepi6PJDs8

Length: 8min 5sec (485 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021