How the Stranger Things Cast Nabbed Their Star-Making Roles

The actors on Stranger Things are household names now—but it all started with a first audition.

When the Netflix sci-fi series started in 2016, nobody had ever heard of Hawkins, Indiana and the Upside Down sounded like a pineapple dessert. For casting director Carmen Cuba, the process of finding the right actors to inhibit the roles was a monumental task. Cuba and series creators Matt and Ross Duffer knew that the show needed some heavyweight child actors, so she knew approaching unknowns wasn’t going to cut it. 

“This was not going to be that. It was going to be such hard work. It was going to be months on end and very specific dialogue,” Cuba revealed to Vanity Fair. “That was helpful because from the beginning, we said, ‘Okay, no street casting for this. We’re going to start with theater schools, acting coaches, kids who have been on Broadway.'”

When the process began, not only did they begin to put the pieces together, the actors themselves were responsible for molding the characters’ identities—especially Gaten Matarazzo, who would eventually be cast as Dustin.

“You couldn’t have predicted or sought out somebody like Gaten,” Cuba said. “He was an excellent surprise. What he brought to the character was not what we imagined. It also made us realize we didn’t even have any idea what it could be until we met him.”