Lots of new characters joined the Stranger Things universe
in these last nine chapters.
Billy and Max brought their California 'tudes to Hawkins,
and Kali introduced Eleven to a whole other world.
Dr. Owens tried to clean up Dr. Brenner's mess,
until Murray the reporter brought the truth.
And, of course, Bob Newby thought a life with Joyce would be easy-peasy.
And some of them are here tonight.
It's the new class right now on Beyond Stranger Things.
Same rules still apply.
Spoilers ahead.
Joining me at the table today
for our ongoing discussion of everything Stranger Things 2,
she plays Max, we have Sadie Sink, who's with us today.
He plays Billy, Dacre Montgomery is here.
As Kali, Linnea Berthelsen is with us today.
And as Murray, Brett Gelman.
Thank you all for being with me.
By law, I think I have to ask this.
Were you all fans of the show
- before you... before they... - Yeah.
You came in? Good. I was hoping someone said, "You know what? No."
- Why were you hoping that? - Paycheck.
No, I don't know. I liked the idea. I wanted to see if you'd say it. You go:
- "No, paycheck." - Uh-huh.
What I love about this sort of particular grouping for this panel,
it's because it gives us a chance to talk about the new blood,
the new characters that have come into the Stranger Things world.
Were there expectations for you, dropping into something
that's established, dynamics established?
Yeah. I think there's certainly an element of it.
Coming into it, I was already a fan of the first season,
and knowing it had such a huge fan following, it's kind of...
I think could be quite nerve-racking.
But I think, also, in a way, it's exciting the thought of jumping into a world
that's so complex. It feels so real to me.
Yeah. 'Cause we have other characters, obviously,
who are new to the Stranger Things world.
Paul Reiser, obviously, being our Dr. Owens,
and new face of Hawkins Lab.
I understand what you went through last year. I get it.
But those people are gone.
They're gone, okay?
So, if we're gonna get through this...
I just... I need you to realize I'm on your side.
Paul Reiser couldn't be here, but we asked him to...
about joining the cast and what it felt like meeting the Duffers,
and here's what he had to say.
Take a look at this over here.
When I sat down with the brothers, I was actually...
I didn't know how to say this, but I wanted to go, "Why...?
How do you know me? You're significantly younger."
And to my surprise, they...
The first thing they said was, "When we grew up, our father made us...
really raised us on watching Diner.
I went, "Okay, well, that's pretty hip, and a wide cultural range.
I presumed, and they sort of confirmed, that...
the character I played in Aliens
certainly had a lot to do with what they had in mind for this.
It was definitely fun to bring all of that baggage into this.
And I think, without even opening my mouth,
the minute, you know, I show up in season two,
the audience is going, "This is not gonna go well."
"This guy can't be up to anything good."
Which is great fun.
It was exciting when I knew that he was playing that character.
Because of Aliens.
- It was an amazing reference. - Yeah.
Uh, Linnea, I wanna ask you about the journey you're going on with Kali.
That's the first thing we're dropped into, uh, with a question mark, with a boom.
Boom.
Holy shit!
I knew from the get-go that we were gonna open the season.
I think it was a really strong moment that they...
the Duffers created, in the beginning.
You have an important part of bringing out Eleven's story.
- Yeah. - Kali is basically Yoda.
I mean, she is training Eleven
to heighten her power, but coming from a place
of anger and revenge.
Find that anger.
Focus on that, not the train.
Not its weight.
And it takes you to this moment at the van.
I'm sorry, but I have to go back.
My friends... My friends are in danger.
Jane! Jane!
Eleven has chosen a different path with her powers.
And there's this nice image of you clearly resonating.
I think it's this moment where Kali realizes that
she really missed out, she doesn't know how to connect with other people.
And she really understands that
it's gonna take more than just doing what she's doing
at the moment to kind of succeed and be able to go on.
- Something really changes in her. - Yeah.
Great entrance.
We have an entrance where you're coming,
being dismissed by Hopper, and then, of course, we have Billy and Max.
I wanna talk to you about the "Rock Me Like a Hurricane" entrance.
You approve of that song?
Of course. Yeah.
- Did they tell you it'd be this song? - No.
- No? - No one told me.
I spent Thanksgiving with the brothers.
- Oh, very nice. - We shared food,
and broke bread, and listened to music.
And we all came up with different songs and stuff, and, uh...
- it was a really fun session. - Did you see an evolution
as you got into scenes over the course of the series
- that sort of surprised you? - It's exactly that.
The Duffers have a collaborative process, which is so nice to be a part of.
They hadn't written the episodes... When we were shooting the early ones,
the later ones hadn't been written yet,
so there's this nice outlook of what is next. And...
- Yeah. - I loved working with them.
Specifically to Billy, it was like where is this anger coming from?
And then fantastic Will Chase was hired to play my father.
And that intense scene with him,
where it's kind of all unfolded, I think, in a way of like,
this is the person in his life that has made him the way he is.
What did we talk about?
How about Murray?
Was it described in a certain way for you to approach it, or...
I had a conversation about
what I thought would be appropriate for the character.
Yeah. What were those things that you had in mind?
That he had been disgraced in some way, and...
but it probably wasn't some gigantic governmental thing.
It was more of a corporate, local thing he'd tried to uncover
that backfired on him.
Hey, morning, chief.
- Morning. - Morning, Murray.
Got any proof on your butt-probing aliens yet, Murray?
And you see things in the design
of like, when you get fitted with your costume, and then you see...
- What they're going to look like. - ...the design of where you live.
All of the design is so specific,
every element of the show is so specific, that it informs a lot.
Absolutely. It sort of unfolds, because you're in a different era.
You're doing all these things,
and your world becomes... Your car becomes...
All those jeans. They were nice and tight.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Very tight jeans.
- Custom-made. - During the fitting, did they say,
- "We need them tighter"? - Yeah, we tried on...
No joke, we actually...
We tried on a lot of vintage jeans from New York.
It was about what was gonna have the right cup,
you know, around my bum.
Oh, my God.
So, finding the highest-waisted possible jeans that could
- allow for the rest... - That's how they fit me.
- Right. - Yeah.
You and I feel the same. How can we get our butts...
They wanted to get a real tight raincoat on Murray.
But, yeah, the costume design
- is so... specific. - Incredible.
- Incredible. She's amazing. - It was. And with that mullet,
how was just throwing that thing on?
There was a lot of trepidation, but excited trepidation, I think.
And then when I got down to Atlanta,
Sarah, who was head of Hair, ended up fitting it on and...
We had great fun. I would spend two hours every day
getting hair and makeup done,
and Amy from the Hair Department... I had that fake tan...
Oh, my God.
- You get fake tan? - I had to.
- Oh, that's right. California. - Yeah. And it smelled awful.
I already have a natural glow, so they never have to do that.
So great.
They were like, "You were out in the sun.
You're a skateboarder. It makes sense."
- You skateboard before? No. - No.
- Did you learn for this? - Yes.
How long did that take?
While filming, I was doing lessons.
- Did you fall a lot? - Oh, all the time. Every single...
Every single day.
- They had me in elbow pads. - She's authentic.
It did seem authentic.
I assumed that that was your natural thing.
As well as basketball.
- I didn't play. - No?
Me and Joe trained together with this amazing coach called Bo Bell.
He was in some big team.
This shows you how little I know about basketball.
Had a great time, it was hard work,
and then when we got in the space, it was great.
Bo Bell's the coach in the scene.
- Okay. - Standing in that back row.
They had him in costume. And he was kind of
secretly yelling actual directions.
- Really? What kind of directions? - Well, like...
- "Do better"? - Yeah.
- "Dribble"? - Things like, "Don't do that shit."
Uh... Just those sort of things.
And Shawn Levy was great with coordinating the whole thing.
It was very planned out.
The last shot I did
that under-the-leg thing...
Bo Bell, on the day, was like, "Do not do it."
I did it, I got it in, which was great.
But I think the look of me getting it in was supposed to be like, uh,
a flip-the-bird moment to Joe's character,
but it ended up being me being really surprised
- that I got it in. - You were surprised?
I was like, "Holy shit."
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Thank you!
- What was it like working together? - We didn't do a chemistry read before...
meeting each other.
- So, it was just dropped in on day one? - Yeah.
The first scene we did together was...
- The drop-off. - Yeah.
That was the first scene we did together.
I didn't know what to expect, but I think it turned out great.
It gets somewhat violent between you.
Like you grabbing her wrist
- in the car and stuff. - That wasn't in the script.
- That was... - Yeah, we did that...
- In the moment? - Yeah.
You're a piece of shit, but we're family whether we like it or not,
meaning I'm stuck looking out for you.
- What would I ever do without...? - Hey!
We had to figure out...
'Cause I had to put my hands up so he could grab my wrist.
So I was like, "What would I ever do without you?"
You stay away from them, hear me?
Stay away.
I try to be nice to her off-screen. As nice as I can.
- It's understandable. - I'm not like that.
This isn't who I am.
Right now, or the character?
Oh. Look, I don't know. It's a blurry line.
I wanna talk about that moment when you plunge the needle
into the neck of this young gentleman next to you.
That was a crazy day.
You walking around on set with a syringe sticking out of your neck.
- It feels like you had a lot of fun. - It was really fun.
From here on out, you leave me and my friends alone.
- Do you understand? - Screw you.
I wanna talk to you about this very fun scene...
with Mrs. Wheeler...
- and this seduction, which is fantastic. - Love it.
She's reading in the bubble bath, and then, that guy comes to the door.
That book and the bubble bath. Did you see the cover of the book?
- It's basically very close. Sort of Fabio. - It's like a Photoshop crop
of the mullet onto this far more masculine man.
Cara, she's phenomenal, and on the day,
we kind of just played with the whole thing.
There was a lot of ad-libbing. Even with the cookie jar,
I said to the Duffers, I was like, "Can I get a cookie out?"
Just play her with the cookie.
What about the cigarette while you're pumping iron?
Yeah, there was so much of that.
Like when I rub the cologne under my pants. I mean,
that's something I've done before. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah.
I did this morning.
Yeah, some good old cologne below the pant line.
- I just pour a whole bottle. - Oh, yeah.
Just the whole bottle down.
- There was a lot of that stuff. - What about your hand motions?
- Were you working out her hand motions... - Of course.
I did. We needed to figure out,
what is the powerful moment here? How do we show it really well?
Like here, like this... that... Yeah, out here.
- A little further... Oh. Mm-hmm. - Like that.
Especially because you had fingerless gloves,
which are nice. Always sells.
- Those always... Immediate... - Tough. I've always wanted to be
in an '80s music video constantly in my life.
And... Is it nice to have these sort of...
With Sean Astin as well, you know, as Bob,
you have these sort of nods to Goonies and '80s...
- Yeah. - folding in.
- Joyce. What is going on? Where are we? - Oh, my God. Are you okay?
- The tunnels. - We don't have Sean Astin,
but here's what he had to say about joining the cast as well.
The Duffers said something to me early on
that I thought was really cool.
They said that they actually hesitated to hire me
because I was in The Goonies,
because the critical thing is you're not distracting.
So one of the coolest things for me, for Bob, the character,
is coming into the Byers' house and seeing these walls
and the floor and the ceiling taken over with Will's map.
- where this is. - That's the objective, find the X.
Yeah? What's at the X, pirate treasure?
Bob, no questions.
Okay.
So, I think the "X marks the spot,"
"Is that a treasure map?" is, like, right up to the line.
But, again, I think that Sean and Bob have crossover.
'Cause Bob looks at it, and he thinks it's cute.
Like, "Hey, it's a treasure map. That's cool."
Sean, who was in The Goonies, walks up, like, "It's a treasure map.
I get what the writers did there. That's kind of cool."
As far as these characters that have all lived,
congratulations to all of you.
Obviously, our sweet, sweet Bob
was a character within the story whose death helps propel
a lot of the other characters towards the ultimate ending.
Run!
I will say, though, it's a good rule,
if you're running and you successfully get away from a Demodog,
you keep running.
- Yeah. - I'm just saying.Bob.
You don't have time to smile at Joyce
- and say, "Good to see you." - Well...
Really angry at Bob right now.
- He was too nice. It killed him. - He was too nice. Sorry, Bob.
That final shot of them
feeding off him is, I think, maybe the most horrifying shot...
moment of the whole show.
- Yeah. - I was...
It's so dark, but I get...
that it's like, he's dead.
- He did help them in his death. - He did.
What a beautiful thing.
Thank you all so much for being a part of this
and sharing your stories from behind the scenes.
It's wonderful to have these new characters
in this world of Stranger Things 2.
If you'd like to watch more Beyond Stranger Things,
stay right here for a new episode, starting imminently.