Finn Wolfhard nearly quit acting before landing his role on Stranger Things. The young star has truly blown up in the last handful of years ever since taking on the part of Mike Wheeler on Netflix’s massive hit sci-fi series. But things could have gone very differently for Wolfhard, as he was looking to give it up just ahead of his career-defining break.
The reveal came during a recent interview profiling the 17-year-old actor. At the age of nine, he was cast in a music video and that set him down the path. But gigs weren’t easy to come by. Finn Wolfhard recalled trolling Craiglist for gigs, which was a bit sketchy.
“You could go on Craigslist and search for gigs. And some were, like, sketchy, but you would also find, like, ‘Looking for eight- to 11-year-old boy and girl to play younger versions of Canadian indie band.'”
After a few years of chasing down jobs the hard way, and after starring in a couple of music videos, Finn Wolfhard hit something of a wall. The star says he was “sick in bed and almost considering not even acting.” Then the Duffer Brothers came calling about Stranger Things and his life totally changed.
“They just kind of pitched me the show, I was, like, 12, and we talked about all the movies it was based on.”
Finn Wolfhard landed the role of Mike, one of the main characters on the show, and the rest is recent history. Stranger Things quickly went on to become one of Netflix’s biggest original hits and has only seemed to gain steam from season to season. Though, it didn’t feel that way when they were working on the first season, according to Wolfhard. None of them expected that it would go on to become a pop culture phenomenon. They were hoping for cult classic.
“We just thought we were filming this secret thing that no one knew about. Which we were. No one knew what we were doing. Netflix were kind of hands-off. We thought maybe it would become a cult classic, and we’ll come back to it in 30 years and be really proud of doing it… And then it just blew up. Overnight.”
Additionally, Finn Wolfhard landed the role of Richie Tozier in IT and IT Chapter Two, which went on to become massive hits at the box office. Wolfhard also starred in last year’s animated The Addams Family movie and has a role in next year’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. As for Stranger Things season 4, the show had begun filming before the lockdown but was forced to hit the pause button. It remains unclear when production will kick back up again, which also leaves the show’s return date up in the air. But, at best, we are probably looking at late 2021. This news comes to us via The Guardian.
