Inside the new 'Stranger Things': "It's our 'Game of Thrones' season"

In March 2020, the fourth season of

It had been filming for a month.

Suddenly, covid practically paralyzed the entire world.

Also, of course, the recording of one of the most popular Netflix series.

Until the end of September, six months later, they were unable to resume production.

By then, in the real world many things had changed.

The visit to the recording of the fourth season in which EL PAÍS participated in June 2021 is an example of these changes: it was only possible virtually, with each journalist at home to attend the filming of a scene and a tour of the different departments of the series, where those responsible explained the novelties.

The day ended with interviews with the cast.

"I don't know if you hear me right, it rains a lot here," apologizes Priah Ferguson, Erica in the series.

On another screen, Maya Hawke,

Three years after the premiere of the third season, the fourth lands on Netflix at a critical moment for the platform, after the crash in the markets as a result of having lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of the year and the prospect that another two million can unsubscribe in the second.

, one of its most popular series since it premiered in the summer of 2016, could be the lifeline that the company needs, and that is why Netflix will try to extend its effect by dividing this season into two installments, the first of seven chapters, on May 27 and the second, with the last two episodes, on July 1.

They are chapters with an extra-long duration —several exceed 75 minutes and the last will reach two hours—, and a budget that, according to

is around 30 million dollars (about 28.9 million euros) each.

More information

The May 2022 series: 'Stranger Things', on Netflix;

'Obi-Wan Kenobi', on Disney+, and others

“We call this our

season, ” says Ross Duffer, co-creator with his brother Matt of this fantasy-adventure universe that pays homage to the 80s genre movies.

It does not refer to the budget of the series (Netflix's already exceeds HBO's, according to leaked figures), but to the fact of having the characters scattered throughout various locations.

On the one hand, Eleven and the Byers family have moved to a California that, in the words of Matt Duffer, has direct influences from the residential neighborhoods in which the action of

.

In Hawkins, Indiana, another group of characters remains.

There, the Creel mansion, a key haunted house in the history of this installment, takes on special relevance.

And finally, Hopper (played by David Harbour) is imprisoned in Russia.

Winona Ryder and Brett Gelman, in the fourth season of 'Stranger Things'.Courtesy of Netflix (Courtesy of Netflix)

Filming, until now focused on Atlanta (Georgia), has also expanded its borders: California was recreated in New Mexico, while a part of the team moved to Lithuania before the pandemic was declared to record the sequences located in Russia.

“We have very different aesthetics.

There is the Californian, the Hawkins spring and the Russian winter.

All those different tones come into play at the same time,” describes Matt Duffer.

“The fact that we are so spread out this year defines the season.

All these stories, however disparate they may seem, will inevitably end up converging, ”completes his brother Ross.

The contrast between the different locations has marked the work of the different artistic departments.

Amy Parris, costume designer, shows the shirts, t-shirts and accessories prepared for the characters.

“We wanted to capture the contrast between California and Hawkins through color.

Hawkins maintains

with very saturated colors.

And in California we incorporate light pink, teal and purple.

Everything is more sun-kissed, in contrast to the stronger colors of Hawkins”, says the designer.

Millie Bobby Brown, in 'Stranger Things'.Courtesy of Netflix (Courtesy of Netflix)

Sarah Hindsgaul and Amy L. Forsythe, responsible for hair and makeup, respectively, also talk about this opposition.

“In California we have softer, warmer tones, more beachy, a bit more 1986 fashion, whereas in Hawkins they've always been a bit behind.

They're not as cool there as people in California,” says Forsythe.

"There are even differences in the volume of the hair, which is greater in Hawkins because they are a little more disheveled," completes Hindsgaul.

For the actors, the change of locations this season was added to the changes due to filming in a pandemic.

Quite problematic was the six-month hiatus for a purely biological aspect: "It was a challenge because we were all growing physically," says Gaten Matarazzo, Dustin in the series.

Those kids that when

It started when they were between 12 and 14 years old, now they are over 18. “Before the break, in a single week Caleb McLaughlin [Lucas in the series] grew an inch!

[about 2.5 centimeters]”, says the person in charge of makeup.

On one wall of the space she shares with the hairdressing team are marks that correspond to the height of each of the young actors.

“Every time they come in after a break, we make them take off their shoes, put them against the wall and measure them,” they say while displaying those signs.

From left, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Sadie Sink and Gaten Matarazzo.Courtesy of Netflix (Courtesy of Netflix)

The pandemic, a real threat

"We started shooting this season in 2020 and then everything happened and we didn't return until September, with a lot of new protocols that slowed down the process," says Natalia Dyer, Nancy in fiction.

“Normally, the Duffer brothers would write the scripts while we were shooting and hand them over to us bit by bit.

This time they had time to finish them and we were able to have all the scripts before shooting again,” she adds.

“It really hasn't changed the dynamic on set that much for me, we're just telling a story, as usual,” adds Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven.

The adult cast seems not to have experienced the situation with the same nonchalance as the younger ones.

As an example, the vision of Brett Gelman, Murray in the series, a character who gains presence this season and who acts as comic relief amid so much tension and mystery.

“Sometimes it seems to me that something magical happens when the working conditions on the set indirectly affect what your character is going through.

In this case, covid was an existential threat, an important danger, and that connected with what the characters feel in the series.

As an actor, you're always going to run into unforeseen events, and you can take them as roadblocks or they can help you connect with the character and immerse yourself in the scenes more deeply."

Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp and Millie Bobby Brown, in the fourth season of 'Stranger Things'. Courtesy of Netflix (Courtesy of Netflix)

Freddy Krueger

For this season's new threat to Hawkins, the Duffer brothers took inspiration from the horror classic A

, whose first film was released in 1984. “Our goal is to try something new every year so that the series evolves. .

That comes naturally because children are growing up.

It's weird to even call them kids, they're already full-fledged young adults... So we thought this was a good year to put them in a kind of

explains Ross Duffer.

The tribute to the classic directed and written by Wes Craven is completed with the participation this season of actor Robert Englund, whose face is hidden under the makeup and prosthetics that shape Freddy Krueger, to play Victor Creel, a patient at the psychiatric hospital, where he was interned after being accused of some macabre murders that took place in the fifties.

Millie Bobby Brown remembers the moment she met Englund: “He was in hair and makeup.

I didn't want to interfere, but he came up to me and said, 'You.'

And I was like, 'Me?'

And he told me, 'I loved

[film starring Brown]'.

And I was impressed.

It was not what should have happened, I was the one who should have shown him my admiration, ”she explains amused.

Also Joseph Quinn (who plays Eddie, one of the new characters this season) accidentally met Englund when he was shooting.

“It was terrifying.

I didn't get to talk to him, but I think it fits so well with that dark point in the show, it's creepy."

Vecna, the monster from the fourth season of 'Stranger Things'.Courtesy of Netflix (Courtesy of Netflix)

New monster (BREAKDOWN ON PAPER?)

The personal fears of the characters play a fundamental role in this season, and this is what the new monster from the Upside Down World takes advantage of, Vecna, inspired by one of the characters from the game

.

As the Duffer brothers remember, in the eighties there were people who related this role-playing game with the emergence of satanic rites.

“We have been inspired by that kind of satanic panic and also by the documentary series

”, says Matt Duffer, referring to the program that picks up the true case of the murder of three children in 1993 in Arkansas, which the police associated with a satanic ritual .

"Vecna ​​is basically a human who has been subjected to the Upside Down World environment for 20 years," explains Barrie Gower, the prosthetic designer for the fourth season of

, experienced in productions such as

or

and who now works on the series

and

In his workshop, he shows a sheet with the order in which he has to apply the materials and the steps he must follow to obtain Vecna, a monster made almost entirely manually.

"He's shaped like a human, but we integrated a lot of shapes and textures into him from the Upside Down World, roots, vines, very organic shapes like muscle tissue fibers... But because he's human, underneath there are patches of pale flesh." , almost anemic, as white as if it hadn't had the sun in 20 years," explains Gower as he shows how they work with plaster and plasticine molds to divide the monster's body into different parts that they then cover with prosthetics made from a materials mix.

"I would say that the tone of this season is darker than the previous ones," summarizes Matt Duffer.

To make matters worse having to deal with a monster from the underworld, the young protagonists have to face another monster that is even scarier: growing up.

already knows that it will end in its fifth season.

Because growing up is inevitable, even when you have already saved humanity several times from the forces of evil.

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