There are stranger things than David Harbour’s latest press tour.
Okay, so I’ve been digging, and I finally found out why our beloved star wasn’t with the rest of the Stranger Things crew last month when they were doing all the promo stuff! It was so weird not seeing them with Millie, Finn, Gaten, Caleb, Noah, and Sadie, and now I know the reason… I’m still processing, honestly, but at least we have some answers!
Reports that David canceled any appearances are incorrect. A source told TopMob News he wasn’t scheduled to participate in the interview junket in the first place. He’s currently filming the new movie Evil Genius with Courteney Cox, according to Deadline.
Even though he was very busy last month, David is now confirmed to attend the premiere of Stranger Things season five in Los Angeles on November 6th, according to a source.
TopMob News tried contacting Netflix about David missing the press tour, but they didn’t receive a response. They also reached out to David’s representative for comment, but haven’t heard back yet.
David recently resurfaced in the news after his ex-wife, Lily Allen, released her new album, West End Girl. The album hints that David’s infidelity contributed to the end of their four-year marriage.
In the song “Ruminating,” the Grammy-nominated artist sings about being haunted by the image of her husband’s affair. Meanwhile, in “Sleepwalking,” she describes how her partner dismisses her suspicions of infidelity, leading her to believe her fears are unfounded despite evidence to the contrary.
Although David hasn’t commented publicly on Lily’s new album, he has talked about how he felt as the popular show that launched his career was ending.
He shared with Esquire Spain that while difficult experiences bring sadness and fear, they also create opportunities for personal growth and pursuing your own interests. He also expressed excitement about the lessons he’s gained from working on Stranger Things.
The Emmy-nominated actor also shared that while they believe Stranger Things is a fantastic and enduring show, it will likely also be remembered as something specific to the era in which it was created.
David says his older costars are “good kids” and believes they have bright futures ahead of them.
He added that he’s always willing to support them, but they’re ultimately forging their own way. It’s a challenging journey, but everyone seems to be thriving.
Read on to learn behind-the-scenes secrets about Stranger Things.
Before creating Stranger Things, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer worked on M. Night Shyamalan’s TV series Wayward Pines. Their initial idea for the show was actually called Montauk.
Matt explained to The Daily Beast in 2016 that once you’ve become fixated on a title, it’s incredibly difficult to convince others to consider something different. He said that when they first proposed Stranger Things, it was a struggle to get people on board with it.
The creators of the show originally planned to film on Long Island, but it wasn’t practical, so they chose a different location.
Matt told The Hollywood Reporter they chose Montauk because of its beautiful coastal location, its connection to the setting of Jaws – which he considers his favorite movie – and the potential for a ‘really cool’ vibe. However, they quickly realized filming on Long Island during the winter would be both unpleasant and too costly.
Atlanta ultimately became the home base for production.
Before Netflix decided to air the show, nearly 20 other networks rejected it, as reported by Vulture. Executives at those networks worried viewers wouldn’t connect with a series focused on four child actors.
4. To play Eleven, then 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown had to say goodbye to her hair.
In 2018, at PaleyFest, the actress described shaving her head as the most liberating experience of her life. She explained that letting go of her hair felt like revealing her true self, as she could no longer hide behind it. Looking in the mirror afterward, she felt a powerful sense of purpose: to inspire others to see that beauty isn’t defined by having hair.
Oh my god, you will NOT believe where she got her inspiration! She was completely obsessed with Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road – honestly, it’s EVERYTHING. And get this, she also spent ages looking at old yearbook photos of Winona Ryder! It’s like, she combined those two iconic women and created pure magic. I knew it! I knew there was something special about those influences!
She mentioned that Winona Ryder’s short, pixie cut was really stylish years ago, and it inspired her to try the look herself.
The British actress shared that she used a surprising resource to nail her American accent: Miley Cyrus’s Hannah Montana. She told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that the show—and the movie—were incredibly helpful. “It’s so good! Like the film, everything. Everything about it is amazing. And I got the American accent,” she explained.
The Duffer brothers used scenes from the movie Stand By Me when auditioning young actors to find the four main child stars for their show.
Honestly, they were looking for someone to play Mike, but they hadn’t quite found him yet. Then Finn Wolfhard walked into the audition room and… everything changed. Seriously, the moment he read, I knew he was Mike. It was like they’d been searching forever and then, boom, there he was!
Matt explained to The Daily Beast in 2016 that Mike initially reminded him of a wistful, imaginative character like Mikey from The Goonies. However, Finn Wolfhard brought a nervous, energetic quality to the audition, so they tailored the character to fit his personality.
Gaten Matarazzo, who played Dustin, also had a big impact on the show’s development. According to Matt, they initially envisioned Dustin as a typical nerd, but after meeting Gaten, they rewrote the character to better suit his talents and personality.
After the show gained popularity, Kellogg’s noticed a big jump in Eggo waffle sales, thanks to Eleven’s love for them. Sales increased by 14% in late 2017, right after the second season aired, and October became the most talked-about month for Eggo waffles on social media.
In early 2018, David Harbour became an internet sensation after agreeing to a fan’s unusual request: taking her senior portraits. It started when the fan tweeted, asking how many retweets it would take to convince him to do her photoshoot. Harbour responded he’d do it for 25,000 retweets, with the condition he could wear the school sweatshirt and hold a trombone. True to his promise, he followed through!
He jokingly predicted on Instagram that he’d be the one to photobomb someone’s high school senior pictures, even 24 years in the future.
Later that year, Harbour playfully offered to marry a fan if she could get 125,000 retweets and a piece of wedding cake. He became officially ordained and ended up performing the ceremony dressed as his character, Chief Hopper.
Fans often speculated that Eleven might be Hopper’s biological daughter, but he ultimately became her adoptive father. A touching detail in the season two finale revealed Eleven wearing a blue braided bracelet – made from a ribbon belonging to Hopper’s deceased daughter – at her school dance, subtly hinting at their father-daughter bond.
Oh my gosh, you guys, did you KNOW that Eleven’s first kiss with Mike in season one was actually Millie Bobby Brown’s first kiss, EVER?! She said it was SO weird! Can you imagine? She admitted having like, 250 people watching you have your first kiss is just…’Whoa!’ It’s amazing and terrifying all at once, honestly. I can’t even!
She shared what her co-star quietly said to her right before they had to kiss for a second time on the show.
She recalled that he told her he was about to kiss her, but in a very strange way. ‘He basically said, ‘I’m coming in for a kiss,’ but he did this weird, almost ventriloquist-like thing with his voice,’ she explained on The Tonight Show in 2017. ‘It was so bizarre!’
Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton, who star as Nancy and Jonathan in the show, started dating in 2016 and have generally kept their romance out of the public eye.
Natalia shared with Refinery29 that she values keeping her personal life—especially her relationships with family and friends—private. However, she also noted that collaborating with someone you live with can be enjoyable, saying, ‘It’s always really fun.’
Surprisingly, Joe Keery’s character, Steve Harrington, wasn’t originally intended to survive the first season of the show.
According to Ross, they quickly grew fond of Joe Keery, who played Steve, while filming the first season. This affection led them to create a storyline where Steve teams up with Jonathan and Nancy to help resolve the central conflict. Initially, Steve was intended to be a stereotypical, unpleasant athlete, but Keery brought much more depth to the character.
18. Also slated to perish was Eleven. Yes, really.
In the book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down, Ross Duffer explained that the original plan was for Eleven to sacrifice herself to save everyone. However, when they realized the show might continue beyond a single season, they had to change that. They knew Eleven—and Millie Bobby Brown, who played her—was too important to the show’s success. Ultimately, they decided Eleven needed to survive if Stranger Things was going to have a future.
As a storyteller, I completely understand the Duffer brothers’ hesitation with the seventh episode of Stranger Things season two, “The Lost Sister.” They shared with Vulture that they worried sending Eleven off on that side quest to find another experimented-on child would really disrupt the flow of the season. It was a tough call, but ultimately, they decided it was a story worth telling – and I’m so glad they did! Sometimes those detours are exactly what a narrative needs.
Matt explained that as they started writing the episode, they questioned whether it was even necessary. They seriously considered cutting it entirely, but the planned ending involving Eleven didn’t work without it. It just didn’t feel right. Ultimately, they decided the episode was essential.
20. Eleven’s sibling was written to be a boy, with the episode originally titled “The Lost Brother.”
Once the audition was open to all young actors, Linnea Berthelsen won the role. The resulting episode showed Eleven meeting her “sister,” Kali. According to Matt, Linnea and Millie (who plays Eleven) connected really well, and Millie specifically asked to work with Linnea.
As a lifestyle enthusiast, I always find it fascinating to hear how casting decisions unfold! Did you know Nicola Coughlan, who we all adore as Penelope Featherington in Bridgerton, originally tried out for the role of Robin? Ultimately, Maya Hawke landed that part, and Nicola has said Hawke was simply perfect for it – far better than she ever could have been. It just goes to show how things work out as they should, and how talented everyone on that show truly is!
She explained that actors can learn a lot by looking at roles they didn’t land. It helps them realize rejection isn’t personal—everyone is simply better suited for some parts than others.
Before becoming famous for her role as Sarah on the Netflix series Outer Banks, Madelyn Cline played the character Tina, a popular but unkind student, in the second season of Stranger Things.
To land the role of Billy, the rebellious older stepbrother of Max (played by Sadie Sink), Australian actor Dacre Montgomery created a memorable audition tape. He told GQ he aimed to impress the Duffer brothers with something bold and attention-grabbing.
Dacre took a big chance by filming himself dancing to 80s hits like “Come on Eileen” and “Hungry Like the Wolf” while wearing very little clothing – just a G-string. He was worried about sending the video, thinking it could either end his career or finally get him noticed. Luckily, his gamble worked out!
As the show entered its third season, Deadline reported significant pay raises for the cast. The younger actors saw their per-episode salaries jump from around $30,000 to over $200,000, and potentially as high as $250,000. Winona Ryder and David Harbour were earning approximately $300,000 to $350,000 per episode, while Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton were making between $100,000 and $150,000.
Priah Ferguson was originally only scheduled for one episode in season two as Erica, Lucas’s spirited younger sister. However, the Duffer brothers were so impressed with her performance that they kept adding her to scenes. She became a main cast member in the next season.
Because the young actors were still growing during filming, the costume designers had a hard time making sure their clothes fit consistently throughout the series.
As a long-time follower of this show, I was absolutely floored by what costume designer Kim Wilcox shared with TopMob News! She was telling them about the challenges of fitting the young actors, and it was insane. Apparently, one of the kids was growing so fast – half a shoe size every three weeks! – that they could barely keep him in shoes. Her clever solution? She sourced brands that made the same styles in a wide range of sizes. They’d just buy multiples of each shoe, so whenever a kid had a growth spurt, they were always prepared. It’s such a thoughtful detail that really shows how much care goes into the production!
The Duffer brothers, when creating the show, drew inspiration from films like The Goonies, E.T., and Stand By Me, but they were careful not to make those influences too obvious.
When we initially presented the project to Netflix, we created a lengthy, two-and-a-half-minute trailer. It combined clips and ideas from around 20 to 30 films to hint at the world of Stranger Things. However, as Matt Duffer explained to The Daily Beast, those cinematic influences were mostly conceptual. While those films were a huge part of their childhoods and deeply influenced them, the writers rarely directly referenced other movies when crafting individual episodes. Their primary focus was on developing the story and letting the characters drive the narrative. Otherwise, he said, it would have become disjointed and confusing.
The team aimed for a retro look by minimizing special effects, but they soon discovered it was much harder than they thought.
Originally, we wanted to rely on traditional, physical effects. But we quickly learned – and gained a lot of respect for the teams behind films like The Thing and Alien – that practical effects are incredibly challenging. They require extensive time and preparation. We were developing scripts rapidly, but didn’t have the months needed to build and set up those kinds of effects. When we got to set, many of the ideas that seemed good in theory just weren’t feasible given the time constraints.
The creators, the Duffer brothers, originally planned for the show to last five seasons. According to Netflix executive Matthew Thunell, many of their ideas from 2015 are now coming to fruition as the series nears its conclusion. Variety magazine reported that each episode of season four cost around $30 million to produce.
Although the creators of Stranger Things, the Duffer brothers, know how the show will eventually end, they’re not finished with the story or the Upside Down world just yet.
In an interview with Variety, the creators revealed they have a spin-off idea they’re really enthusiastic about, but it’s still in the early stages – they haven’t even shared the concept yet. Although they’ve been trying to keep it under wraps, Matt and Ross confessed that Finn had already correctly guessed what the series would be about, calling it “very, very different.” They emphasized that Finn is the only one who knows the idea so far.
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2025-11-06 05:53