Netflix's Stranger Things is an outstanding show that millions of fans can't get enough of. The show might have begun with little more than a small budget and a big dream, but it has since turned into a Goliath of a hit that has a massive budget each season.
As many fans noticed, the cast grew a lot between seasons 3 and 4, despite their characters not aging all that much. Turns out, this caused some difficulties while filming.
Let's take a look at what Noah Schnapp recently said about the way aging impacted filming.
Stranger Things Was A Surprise Hit For Netflix
In 2016, Netflix once again found a way to dominate the pop culture sphere with the release of Stranger Things. The series was a surprise hit for the streaming platform, and the show quickly became one of the most popular in the world.
Things were much smaller earlier on, and even some of the performers doubted that the show would take off.
"Halfway through I remember my hair person coming up to me, like about episode four we were shooting, and she was like, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna work,'" David Harbour once said.
The show's young cast was its driving force early on, and they were all incredibly young when things first got rolling.
The Cast Was Very Young When The Show Started Filming
Instead of going the typical Hollywood route of having older actors play a character that's much younger, the folks at Stranger Things opted to keep things as close as possible in the age department. Because of this, the show felt more authentic, and it helped people connect with it.
Casting director, Carmen Cuba, once spoke about what they were looking for with the young actors.
"We needed every single actor to have a subtlety and an inner life that didn't necessarily need words to define them, and we held the kids and teens to the same standard. We weren't thinking of them as kid or teen actors in the process — the Duffer Brothers were really expecting them to be able to deliver a very rich human experience despite what age body they were in," Cuba said.
The ages mirrored nicely, but because there was a large gap between seasons, the cast was much older than their characters for season 4.
"In the years since, they've aged past their characters — while the Hawkins gang is only around 14 years old in season 4 of the show, they range from 17 to 20 in real life now. Ross Duffer, one of the showrunners of "Stranger Things" alongside his brother Matt Duffer, previously told TV Line that he was "sure" the show would do a time jump in its fifth and final season given the actors' ages," Insider wrote.
As you can imagine, the folks behind the scenes had some difficulties with how drastically the cast had changed, and how they now differed from their characters.
Growing Up Caused Some Difficulties
According to Noah Schnapp, "It was the peak time of change, and puberty and growing up and just everything was changing with all of us, and the directors were just not loving it,”
He then went on to describe to Flaunt some notes he was given about his performance.
“And I remember one of the producers coming up to me and telling me, ‘Noah, is there any way you could just speak in a higher tone and just slouch a little bit? Like, we need you to keep that season one innocence that you had.’ That was like, ‘I don’t know what to tell you. My voice is dropping. I don’t sound young anymore.’”
That must have been tough to deal with for everyone on set. It's not like the performers asked to change so much in the time between seasons, and its not like the directors wanted to give out notes like that.
Despite the changes, season 4 played out beautifully for everyone on the show, and it's set the stage for what should be a dynamic 5th season.
Looks like there will, in fact, be a time jump for season 5.
"I’m sure we will do a time jump. Ideally, we’d have shot [Seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that," the Duffers told TV Line.
It's going to be several years before we get the final season of Stranger Things. Thanks to the proposed time jump, the young cast should be able to be more comfortable in their own skin on set.
