so today on my lunch break, i was watching this interview with carmen cuba, the casting director of stranger things, who literally has my whole entire heart because this show is casted wonderfully, please give her all the awards
but she started talking about robert englund’s audition process for victor creel and said some interesting things about the duffers and the way they go about auditions:
(at about 9:45) “...The Duffers really figure out a lot about the characters through auditions. ... 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.”
and all of this got me thinking. if the duffers are watching the audition process this carefully and even in the audition process letting their actors so deeply shape and inform who these characters are, then how much more are they listening and watching the actors they’ve already hired?
i mean, the best example is, of course, joe keery. steve was meant to be the stereotypical asshole jock killed off after s1, but joe brought his charisma and lovable nature to the character. and the duffers saw that, adapted to it, and made steve into one of the most beloved characters on the show!
same with joe quinn, right? we know eddie was meant to be harsher, more of a rival to steve, less likable, etc. but joe brought his own take to eddie and made him incredibly sympathetic, lovable, and all around liked by most people who have watched s4.
i say all of this to say... i think about finn wolfhard, who (at least among the “kids” though they’re not really kids anymore) has the most experience and exposure to other things outside of stranger things. finn knows his shit. he’s incredibly intelligent and understands storytelling and media, and it clearly informs the way he plays his characters, including mike! i mean, for crying out loud, the kid is like what? 20? and already directing his first feature film? finn has a knack for media.
so you’re going to tell me that finn—who began this show as the primary child protagonist—would just... allow his character to become nothing more than a love interest without any underlying nuance to him? yeah no, that doesn’t seem right to me.
after playing mike for so many years and also being given two seasons to play in the sandbox and get to dive into the character growth and development of mike, finn doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would be satisfied if mike was essentially relegated to a dumb teenage love interest for el in seasons 3-5.
maybe if that’s who mike had always been, i could believe it. but the mike wheeler who spent a whole week searching in the woods for his best friend? who jumped off a cliff to protect one of his best friends? who gave that fucking beautiful and so genuine speech in the shed because he was scared of losing his best friend?
yeah no, i just don’t feel like finn would be satisfied with mike really having 0 growth or sense of direction to his character... unless he knew that there was more to mike’s change in behavior.
and if the duffers are clearly listening and communicating with their actors to allow them to help shape their characters... then idk. sounds like byler endgame to me 🤷🏻♀️
