We’re less than two months from the beginning of the final season of Stranger Things. I’m legitimately really excited for it, even if it’s super annoying that Netflix is stretching it out over three separate release dates. These release dates are Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve, so basically Netflix is hoping to keep people subscribed through January. I bet they announce yet another price raise within that time period.
ST creators Matt and Russ Duffer (aka the Duffer Brothers) appeared at Variety’s Entertainment & Tech Summit. It’s been almost 10 years since ST’s first season, which means its child stars are now basically a decade older than when they started filming. During an interview, the D-Bros were asked about how they managed to keep their then-child actors from avoiding Hollywood’s infamous child actor’s curse. They had very simple answers: good parents and strength in numbers.
As the final chapter of “Stranger Things” approaches, series creators Matt and Ross Duffer are looking back. The Netflix juggernaut premiered back in July of 2016, and at Variety’s Entertainment & Tech Summit in Los Angeles on Thursday, the pair was asked for their thoughts on the fact that the child actors with whom they began this journey are now all adults, some with children themselves.
“It’s wild. It’s a reminder of how long this has been and how lucky we are. Because we’re really– it’s a family who’ve sort of gone through all this together,” Matt Duffer said, joking that he was pleased that none of the young stars were “ruined by this experience.”
“So that was a relief,” he added, drawing laughs.
“I think it always comes down to the parents,” Ross Duffer said. “They had good families, and supportive parents (who) kept them grounded.”
He also thinks there was strength in numbers.
“I think it also kept them grounded that it wasn’t just one of them,” he said. “There’s a whole group of them, and they stayed friends and they stayed connected when seasons ended.”
During “challenging” moments, he said, “they were not going through any of it alone.”
Honestly, good for these kids. From what we know publicly, each of them have turned out pretty well. They’ve also been allowed to come into their own without tabloid interference, which is just astonishing. I grew up in the 90s, where there were so many awful stories about child stars that played out in the public eye, even into the early 2000s. We also heard terrible stories about how some actors, like Macualey Culkin, had to separate their finances from their parents’ so they couldn’t continue to leech off of them. I believe that having decent, present, supportive parents made all of the difference for them.
It’s wonderful that for the most part, the Stranger Things children had people looking out for them on all fronts. I’m not a betting woman, but I’d wager a small-stakes bet that a big part of these children being kept safer from the traditional Hollywood traps was a combination of their parents being aware enough to keep them safe and them working with former child stars like Winona Ryder, who was also able to offer guidance. As they say, it takes a village (made up of villagers with best intentions).
photos credit: Xavier Collin/Jordan Hinton/Image Press Agency/Avalon, Eric Charbonneau for Netflix
