His lips are sealed
But young actor admits it won’t be a normal summer
When you are a teenager you live for those hazy, lazy days of summer.
If you’re lucky, you’ll spend your school-free days doing plenty of sleeping in, goofing off and hanging out with friends.
But if you live in the fictional town of Hawkins, your summer is going to be anything but normal — as the Stranger Things kids find out in the third season of the series, now streaming on Netflix.
“There’s big new threats, the biggest of all so far,” said Finn Wolfhard, the Vancouver actor who plays Mike Wheeler on the show.
That is all Wolfhard will say about the plot for the 1985-set season 3. This show’s storylines are so far under wraps they could call the Upside Down home. So when you flat out ask what happens, you get in return a laugh and a long “ummmm” before the 16-year-old offers up the following.
“It’s set a year after it left off, and everyone is coming to terms with what happened,” Wolfhard said recently. “It is set in the summer, so everyone is trying to be as normal as possible and be normal kids and try and be regular teenagers. But of course because it is Hawkins, things do not go according to plan, and the plan of having a normal summer quickly deteriorates. Eleven is trying to become a normal kid.”
Recently before heading out with his cast mates on a jam packed international press tour, Wolfhard had time off at his Vancouver home.
“I’m hanging out in the homeland. It’s been pretty good,” said Wolfhard.
While you can’t pry any specifics loose from the young actor, he does say his character and the other kids start the season trying to get their lives back to normal — I won’t spoil the season 2 ending in case you haven’t watched yet — or whatever that means.
“He is a teenager (and) he is trying to test new boundaries and be a teenager. He’s trying to have a normal summer. He is trying to have a normal girlfriend. He’s trying to test the waters of what he can get away with and what he can’t. So we kind of pick back up with Mike and he is trying to be as normal as he can,” said Wolfhard, who just finished Grade 11.
Stranger Things is topic No. 1 right now for Wolfhard, but if you pull back the curtain on his life, a much bigger story is revealed. In Hollywood parlance, he’s hot.
He is in the features The Goldfinch, It Chapter Two, The Turning and lends his voice to the animated Addams Family movie. He’s also been tapped for the untitled Jason Reitman Ghostbusters project. Oh, and he and his band Calpurnia are currently writing for a new project.
“It’s been busy, but whatever time off I have I go back to school and try to get as normal a reality as possible,” said Wolfhard about his downtime between projects.
A look at the list of Wolfhard’s projects and a theme, for the most part, seems to develop. This kid likes it scary.
“It’s all coincidence. It’s so funny,” said Wolfhard laughing at the spooky allegation. “I am happy I did something like The Goldfinch so I could kind of flex my acting muscle. Not to say that type casting isn’t great sometimes, but it’s nice to do something different.”
That something different happens to be the film adaptation of a wildly popular book. It’s common knowledge that when beloved books are adapted for TV or film there’s always fair amount skepticism from the fans of the printed word.
But Wolfhard isn’t worried about those “it can never be as good as the book” comments. After all, he has literally seen that movie before.
“I’ve already been through It. I’ve already been through the ringer when it comes to that. I kind of know how to deal with that,” said Wolfhard referencing the side eye the 2017 film It got from fans of the Stephen King novel.
While he now has notched some A-list film projects Wolfhard says he is still most at home on Stranger Things.
He said a season 4 has been talked about and he figures (without confirmation, of course) it will happen.
A big part of the joy of this job comes from the fact Wolfhard is part of a pack of kids who have grown up together over the past few years.
“I’m really lucky to have had that,” said Wolfhard. “I have a lot of kid actor friends who haven’t had a lot of that and have only worked with adults. I have been lucky to be on a set with kids so that I can be comfortable. I have a lot of adult friends but to work with kids is pretty great.”
And even if he has had to forgo a lot of real teen time, the TV teen time at least makes it feel a little bit like normal life.
“We shot a lot in a part of an abandoned-ish mall. They built a set inside it,” said Wolfhard. “The mall plays a giant part this season.”
The idea of putting a lot of the action in a mall seems pretty fitting when you consider these days you can literally buy stores full of Stranger Things merchandise. There are Stranger Things toys, board games, T-shirts, candy, running shoes and even Stranger Things-themed hotel rooms.
Wolfhard gives a hearty “yeah, I know,” when asked about the mountains of merch that has been inspired by the show.
“We are all kind of in shock,” said Wolfhard about how the Stranger Thing kids felt when they saw themselves in doll form for the first time. “It doesn’t feel real. It is pretty surreal.”
Most recently the marketing that most impressed him was Baskin-Robbins’ decision to create the special ice creams Eleven’s Heaven and Upside Down Pralines.
“We got our own ice cream in America,” said Wolfhard. “I was just like, ‘Oh my God. That’s pretty crazy.’”
The company has also recreated the Stranger Things Scoops Ahoy Ice Cream Shop in a Burbank Baskin-Robbins storefront.
The shop will be open until July 14.
While all these added marketing moves might be fun and truly appeal to the kid side of him, Wolfhard knows it’s called show business for a reason.
“This year, season 3, Joe’s (Joe Keery) character Steve is working in the ice cream shop (in Hawkins’ new mall). A lot of it takes place there,” said Wolfhard. “It’s a great tie-in.”
It is set in the summer, so everyone is trying to be as normal as possible and be normal kids and try and be regular teenagers.
F inn wolfhard