Update: The Hollywood Reporter just shared an article with a much more detailed breakdown of the new characters coming to Stranger Things.
According to a casting breakdown obtained by THR, the show's creative team — led by creators Matt and Ross Duffer — is looking for at least three actors to board the sci-fi thriller and play characters new to Hawkins named Max, Roman and Billy. Both Max and Roman are billed as series regulars, while Billy is listed as a potential series regular.
Max is a tough and confident 13-year-old female whose appearance, behavior and pursuits are more typical of boys than of girls in the era. She has a complicated history and has a difficult relationship with her step-brother Billy that's made her protective of her past and generally suspicious of those around her. She's also good on a skateboard, which she uses to get around pretty much everywhere.
Max's step-brother Billy is a super muscular, overconfident 17-year-old. He's so captivating and edgy that there are rumors flying around that he killed someone at a past school he attended. Billy steals peoples' girlfriends, is a drinking game pro and drives a black Camaro. But his violent and unpredictable nature shows itself to those closest to him, especially to ones who are younger than he is.
Roman, meanwhile, is described as a male or a female of any ethnicity between the ages of 30 and 38. After growing up homeless with a drug-addicted mother, he or she suffered a great loss at an early age and has been seeking revenge ever since. Roman is ultimately an outsider who doesn't understand how to connect with people.
The second season, which will pick up nearly a year later in the fall of 1984, will shoot in Atlanta, Georgia, roughly from October to April. In the upcoming installment — which Levy says the writers and producers are viewing less as a second season and more as a sequel — Hawkins residents believe that the horror from last year is finally over but quickly learn that's not the case.
Max is a tough and confident 13-year-old female whose appearance, behavior and pursuits are more typical of boys than of girls in the era. She has a complicated history and has a difficult relationship with her step-brother Billy that's made her protective of her past and generally suspicious of those around her. She's also good on a skateboard, which she uses to get around pretty much everywhere.
Max's step-brother Billy is a super muscular, overconfident 17-year-old. He's so captivating and edgy that there are rumors flying around that he killed someone at a past school he attended. Billy steals peoples' girlfriends, is a drinking game pro and drives a black Camaro. But his violent and unpredictable nature shows itself to those closest to him, especially to ones who are younger than he is.
Roman, meanwhile, is described as a male or a female of any ethnicity between the ages of 30 and 38. After growing up homeless with a drug-addicted mother, he or she suffered a great loss at an early age and has been seeking revenge ever since. Roman is ultimately an outsider who doesn't understand how to connect with people.
The second season, which will pick up nearly a year later in the fall of 1984, will shoot in Atlanta, Georgia, roughly from October to April. In the upcoming installment — which Levy says the writers and producers are viewing less as a second season and more as a sequel — Hawkins residents believe that the horror from last year is finally over but quickly learn that's not the case.
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Update: Season Finale Post Mortem Interviews that provide hints on Season 2
Thanks to DarthLocke4 for the heads up.
Do you see the government or science conspiracy angle as a long-term mystery for the show?
Ross: There’s a lot there we don’t know or understand. Even with the Upside Down, we have a 30-page document that is pretty intricate in terms of what it all means, and where this monster actually came from, and why aren’t there more monsters — we have all this stuff that we just didn’t have time for, or we didn’t feel like we needed to get into in season one, because of the main tension of Will. We have that whole other world that we haven’t fully explored in this season, and that was very purposeful.
Matt: We wanted a simple drive and a somewhat simple mystery with bizarre pops of supernatural horror and then add a larger mythology behind this rift that we only know and refer to as the Upside Down because that’s what the boys decide to call it. Everything they’ve learned about it is kind of hypothetical. They’re theorizing based on their knowledge from fantasy gaming and their science teacher, Mr. Clarke. That’s as much as we get to understand it. I think part of it is us thinking in terms of horror, it’s scarier when you don’t fully understand what’s happening. If you were to encounter something from another world or dimension, it would be beyond comprehension. We talked a lot about Clive Barker and his stories. They’re very weird, and the weirder it is, the more inexplicable it is, the scarier it is.
As you head into future seasons, have you thought about how much of that 30-page document you want to reveal and explore?
Ross: We leave these dangling threads at the end. If people respond to this show and we get to continue this story — we had those initial discussions of where we might go with it. If there was going to be a season two, we would reveal more of that 30 page document, but we’d still want to keep it from the point of view of our original characters.
Even though you tell a complete story within the season, you end on a couple of major cliffhangers — the first being Eleven’s disappearance. Did you want to hint at where she’s been with the scene of Hopper leaving Eggos in the woods?
Matt: Obviously something happened to her when she destroyed and killed that monster and we don’t know what she went. Hopper is left with this guilt because he sold her out. We wanted to leave it sort of mysterious exactly what he knows… Have there been sightings in the woods or is he hoping she’s out there or has he already made contact with her? We don’t answer any of that, but we like the idea of potentially putting her and Hopper together.
Ross: There’s a lot there we don’t know or understand. Even with the Upside Down, we have a 30-page document that is pretty intricate in terms of what it all means, and where this monster actually came from, and why aren’t there more monsters — we have all this stuff that we just didn’t have time for, or we didn’t feel like we needed to get into in season one, because of the main tension of Will. We have that whole other world that we haven’t fully explored in this season, and that was very purposeful.
Matt: We wanted a simple drive and a somewhat simple mystery with bizarre pops of supernatural horror and then add a larger mythology behind this rift that we only know and refer to as the Upside Down because that’s what the boys decide to call it. Everything they’ve learned about it is kind of hypothetical. They’re theorizing based on their knowledge from fantasy gaming and their science teacher, Mr. Clarke. That’s as much as we get to understand it. I think part of it is us thinking in terms of horror, it’s scarier when you don’t fully understand what’s happening. If you were to encounter something from another world or dimension, it would be beyond comprehension. We talked a lot about Clive Barker and his stories. They’re very weird, and the weirder it is, the more inexplicable it is, the scarier it is.
As you head into future seasons, have you thought about how much of that 30-page document you want to reveal and explore?
Ross: We leave these dangling threads at the end. If people respond to this show and we get to continue this story — we had those initial discussions of where we might go with it. If there was going to be a season two, we would reveal more of that 30 page document, but we’d still want to keep it from the point of view of our original characters.
Even though you tell a complete story within the season, you end on a couple of major cliffhangers — the first being Eleven’s disappearance. Did you want to hint at where she’s been with the scene of Hopper leaving Eggos in the woods?
Matt: Obviously something happened to her when she destroyed and killed that monster and we don’t know what she went. Hopper is left with this guilt because he sold her out. We wanted to leave it sort of mysterious exactly what he knows… Have there been sightings in the woods or is he hoping she’s out there or has he already made contact with her? We don’t answer any of that, but we like the idea of potentially putting her and Hopper together.
Source:
How long do you see this series running? Have you thought about future seasons?
ROSS: We don’t know, specifically. We’re very weary of making it go on past the point it should. You want to end on a high note. That’s the goal. We’ve had initial discussions, but we haven’t quite landed on it.
MATT: It seems hard to imagine it as a seven or eight season series. It just doesn’t feel like it could sustain that. At a certain point, it would start to feel ridiculous. And Netflix is also very supportive of that. Regardless of how successful the show is or becomes, they’ll want it to end when the story feels like it should end. I don’t think they want to milk things to the point where it starts to become stale.
Are you looking to stick with this family, for Season 2?
MATT: Yeah, we would introduce some new characters, but follow this group. We fell in love with the kids and all of our actors, so we want to stay with them. And now we know what they’re capable of. I know that I could throw David Harbour the craziest fastball, and he’ll hit it out of the park. I think we’ll have a lot of fun, if they let us do it.
ROSS: We don’t know, specifically. We’re very weary of making it go on past the point it should. You want to end on a high note. That’s the goal. We’ve had initial discussions, but we haven’t quite landed on it.
MATT: It seems hard to imagine it as a seven or eight season series. It just doesn’t feel like it could sustain that. At a certain point, it would start to feel ridiculous. And Netflix is also very supportive of that. Regardless of how successful the show is or becomes, they’ll want it to end when the story feels like it should end. I don’t think they want to milk things to the point where it starts to become stale.
Are you looking to stick with this family, for Season 2?
MATT: Yeah, we would introduce some new characters, but follow this group. We fell in love with the kids and all of our actors, so we want to stay with them. And now we know what they’re capable of. I know that I could throw David Harbour the craziest fastball, and he’ll hit it out of the park. I think we’ll have a lot of fun, if they let us do it.
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And the outlook isn’t good for Barbara. One of the show’s breakout characters, Barb was last seen looking very much dead in the Upside Down. But as the brothers recently paraphrased James Cameron when talking about no one ever really being dead in sci-fi, we asked if she might reappear in Season 2.
“I can’t see it happening” came Matt’s response. "But Barb will not be forgotten. We’ll make sure there’s some justice for Barb. People get very frustrated, understandably, that the town doesn’t seem to be really dealing with Barb. That stuff is all happening. We’re just not spending any screen time on it.
"It’s not like her parents are like ‘Oh Barb left. She died!’ Season One actually takes place over the course of six or seven days – it’s a really short period of time. So part of what we want to do with hypothetical Season 2 is to explore the repercussions of everything that happened.”
The show’s villain – played with sneering malevolence by Matthew Modine – Brenner was attacked by the monster at the end of the first season, though as we didn’t see him die onscreen, his fate was left somewhat open-ended.
And according to Matt, that isn’t the last we’ve seen of the diabolical doctor:
“I would say that if we were going to kill Brenner… as an audience member watching the show, if that was his death, that would be very unsatisfying to me – when the monster jumps on him and we cut away. He would deserve much more than that as an ending. So yes, there’s a possibility of seeing him again.”
“I can’t see it happening” came Matt’s response. "But Barb will not be forgotten. We’ll make sure there’s some justice for Barb. People get very frustrated, understandably, that the town doesn’t seem to be really dealing with Barb. That stuff is all happening. We’re just not spending any screen time on it.
"It’s not like her parents are like ‘Oh Barb left. She died!’ Season One actually takes place over the course of six or seven days – it’s a really short period of time. So part of what we want to do with hypothetical Season 2 is to explore the repercussions of everything that happened.”
The show’s villain – played with sneering malevolence by Matthew Modine – Brenner was attacked by the monster at the end of the first season, though as we didn’t see him die onscreen, his fate was left somewhat open-ended.
And according to Matt, that isn’t the last we’ve seen of the diabolical doctor:
“I would say that if we were going to kill Brenner… as an audience member watching the show, if that was his death, that would be very unsatisfying to me – when the monster jumps on him and we cut away. He would deserve much more than that as an ending. So yes, there’s a possibility of seeing him again.”
Source:
According to casting intel obtained by TVLine, series creators Matt and Ross Duffer are introducing three major new characters, one of whom, “Max,” is a “tough and confident” 12-14 year-old female whose “appearance, behavior and pursuits seem more typical of boys than of girls in this era.” Max eschews Hawkins’ primary mode of transportation — the bicycle — for a skateboard, which she uses to get around everywhere. Interestingly, the Season 2 premiere title, as teased in the renewal news video, appears to be “MadMax.”
The other two new regulars include Max’s “very muscular and hyper-confident” Camaro-driving older brother Billy, and the thirtysomething gender-neutral role of “Roman.” The latter character suffered a great loss at an early age and has been seeking revenge ever since. (Hmm… )
The other two new regulars include Max’s “very muscular and hyper-confident” Camaro-driving older brother Billy, and the thirtysomething gender-neutral role of “Roman.” The latter character suffered a great loss at an early age and has been seeking revenge ever since. (Hmm… )
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