'Stranger Things' Auditions and How the Cast Landed Their Roles | Vanity Fair

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 because he's a natural and i'm was super happy to get to see that very beginning of his directing career hi i'm 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 going to go it was going to be a huge hit we had no idea it was going to 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 you know 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 [Music] hi i'm noah schnapp i'm 10 years old am i weird it's just sometimes i feel it i don't know like 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 old [Music] 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 uh i'm four foot 11. i'm 12 years old nancy listen to me what the hell mike listen remember two days ago with the magic 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 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 it to a stream 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 they create this friend group and we saw that immediately from his very first audition my name is gayton 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 i'm not you couldn't have predicted or sort of sought out someone like gayton 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 stops towards you boom fireball stop boom you can't wait for cats and 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 because 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 uh bob the brain don't call him that sorry old happened he's good we're good good when i first read the script i've 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've 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 you know 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 don't like it [Music] 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 you know 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 reiser 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 sort 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 is different this year it's my year [Music] 86 baby i think season 4 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 munson 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 they we sort of have these sides the 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 how do you like them would you like to join them for vechna 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 510 and have a very thin face and physique keep in mind we're not allowed to say what anything is for the 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 look for and that was what he brought 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 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 it was easier to cast than magic mike and uh that's not just because i needed eight packs

Channel: Vanity Fair

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Keywords: caleb mclaughlin, caleb mclaughlin stranger things, carmen cuba, finn wolfhard, finn wolfhard stranger things, gaten matarazzo, gaten matarazzo stranger things, millie bobby brown, millie bobby brown stranger things, noah schnapp, noah schnapp stranger things, stranger things, stranger things interview, stranger things season 4, strangers things, strangers things auditions, strangers things casting, tricks of the trade, vanity fair, vecna, vecna strangers things

Id: XO6hJAUBWmA

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 10 2022